WOMEN REPLY TO HAIRDRESSER

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28249, 10 April 1957, Page 2

WOMEN REPLY TO HAIRDRESSER

Hairstyle Criticism Resented

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 10 p.m.)

LONDON, April 8.

A leading British hairdresser was criticised by his female audience today after criticising British housewives for their untidy hair. Mr Harold Semmens, master of the Guild of Hairdressers, Wigmakers and Perfumiers, said: “The average Englishwoman’s hair is wind-blown, straggly and looking as though it never receives attention. “It is incredible that in a country where women outnumber men, our females are among the most apathetic in the world with regard to the appearance of their hair.” Mr Semmens, who was addressing his guild’s annual meeting in London, added: “No French or American woman would be seen out with her hair in the state which a British woman seems quite unconcerned about.

“The American housewife visits her hair and beauty salon at least once a week. Perhaps only one in a hundred British women do the same.”

Miss Jean Black, one of his audience today, retorted: “The American woman has her husband so well trained that her appearance comes first and he lives mainly out of tin cans.” Another, Miss Kay Middleton. said: “I have seen women in Paris equally as slothful and sluttish as any woman you can see anywhere in England.” Other viewpoints expressed by Mr Semmens were: The British housewife would love to have the carefree French and American hairstyles, but she forgot that these needed care and attention.

Blondes were dying out —not because they would not like to be blonde or even red-haired, but because it would mean more care and attention and the British housewife was far too lazy, Mr Semmens said he had in mind throughout his comments “the everyday housewife” and not the career woman or the film star —or Lady Docker.