Our journey began with a man called Eugene Suter who started selling hood dryers around 1918 in London. By 1930 he had invented the Eugene Waver (Pictured above), a revolutionary perming machine used extensively around the World for the next decade.

As the years progressed Eugene Ltd, at this point based in Park Lane, London designed and produced a number of Hood Dryers for the UK and Global market.

By the 1960’s dryer production was under the control of Salon Ltd now based in Nelson producing a number of new models such as Sabre, Master, Democrat but in 1967 disaster struck in the form of a flood followed by a landslide which partly demolished some of the production and holding areas of the company.

This forced the move to Hendon Mill and the company soon became known as Suter Ltd who merged with Embassy, a company specialising in shampoos and other salon related products. Dryer production was now at its height and the Suter Diplomat dryer was one of the best on the market.

The Suter manufacturing plant on Hallam Road, a mere 500 yards from where the REM factory stands today, had a fully operational steel workshop where the dryer parts were milled, turned, stamped and sprayed ahead of the assembly lines turning out over 300 assorted dryer types a week.

Following the late 70’s Suter was renamed Suter Equipment who went on to release more futuristic dryers which held strong in the market for years to come. These included the Avante Dryer with diffused air circulation and the Octopus Infra-Red dryer selling in their hundreds up to the 1990’s. With the formation of REM in 1995 and with hairstyles changing massively over the next decade hood dryers soon became less popular taken over by the countless handheld dryers imported into the country from Italy and China.

Whilst REM still sell hood dryers and processors into the market today their numbers are a fraction of those sold in the past but their heritage remains in a small corner of the REM showroom where you can see a few of the old models including the 1930’s Eugene Waiver.