Robert Powls obituary: The Yorkshire hairdresser who created huge brand from his kitchen table
Robert Powls, whose death at 79 was announced last week, was a Yorkshire hairdresser turned entrepreneur who co-founded the GHD brand (short for Good Hair Day) with his former business partners Gary Douglas and Martin Penny.
The company launched the UK’s first ceramic hair straightener and quickly established itself as a leading name in the field, with such celebrity clients as Victoria Beckham, Jennifer Aniston and Madonna.
Mr Powls and Mr Douglas left GHD in 2006 when they were effectively bought out in a £55m deal. Mr Powls subsequently went on to found the Harrogate-based hair straightener company Cloud Nine.
GHD had been Mr Powls’ brainchild. He created the brand on the kitchen table at his home in Ilkley after discovering a company that had invented a process of straightening hair with a wafer-thin ceramic heater.
Realising the potential, and after testing the idea on his then wife Susan, he began selling the product to other hairdressers before moving into the consumer market.
By the end of its second year, his trading company was turning over £12m – four times what it had originally forecast. By 2004, turnover had risen to £37m.
Born in Halifax and, following the buyout, resident in the south of France, Mr Powls had been advising Marks & Spencer and other brands on hairdressing products when he was introduced to the ceramic straightener by an American colleague. A deal with a Korean manufacturer enabled him to bring it to market at a competitive price.
With distribution still based at the house in Ilkley, word of the styling possibilities offered by the ceramic plates – said to be gentler and more even than the metal variety – spread through the fashion world and Mr Powls recalled taking a phone call at 2am from the opera singer Lesley Garrett, desperate to get her hands on a pair.
But as the firm’s success grew, relations between the partners suffered and Mr Powls left the business after the management buyout. He returned with Cloud Nine when the original Korean manufacturer relocated to China and proposed working together on a new venture.