Toni Home Permanent Views
ca. 1947 Pre-Toni, 14s" 1949-1953 Toni dolls, 14-22 1/25" tall, all hard plastic jointed body, the earliest dolls wore a nylon wig in various styles & hair colors, the later heads had rooted hair, sleep eyes usually in blue, real upper eyelashes painted lower lashes, closed mouth. This is the a"Toni Home Permanente" doll, there were lots of separate outfits available, too. The smaller sized dolls have the same head mold as shown above, but the big girl at 22 1/2 " looks quite a bit different than the smaller dolls.
A number of brands of home permanent kits are available, but their numbers have decreased as permanent waves are not as popular as they were in the 1980s. The first popular home permanent was the Toni brand. The Toni company used a set of twins to advertise their products ‐ one with a salon perm and one with the home perm. Another brand that was a household name in Britain in the late 1960s and 1970s was Twink.
Oh yes, I remember these well. As a boy in the 50's, I was often given Tonette, and these Toni's in the late 70's introduced the first MALE in the top row. I even wrote to the Toni Company, and said they had no plans to include in the directions or other than the photo, anything regarding males. At this time, I knew that boys and men were getting the home permanents in staggering numbers.
The creation of Toni Home Permanent opened the door for women who wanted a permanent wave without going to the beauty parlor and paying all outdoors for one. Since its debut, the people of The Toni Company, the makers of Toni Home Permanent, were finding ways to make their star product better--- and to let the people know of its achievement. In other words, Toni Home Permanent was going head on with the other brands of home permanents of the era--- and more importantly, the perms that were done professionally at beauty parlors.
Toni Home Permanent Images
