I'm sure I'm not the only person to have sat in the hairdresser's chair resisting the mind-numbing small talk by trying to read and absorb every piece of promotional material in the room.

And while I was doing this yesterday, it struck me that shampoo manufacturers are missing a trick.

Everyone sits in front of a mirror when they're getting their hair cut. Surely it would make large amounts of sense (the precise quantity of sense will be determined at a later date) to produce laterally inverted copies of their advertising material for mirror-based viewing.

This way everyone in the room has a fair chance of enjoying the latest conditioner poster and nobody can complain.

Not that they were complaining in the first place.
-- NickTheGreat, May 26 2006

Mirror, mirror on the wall. http://www.ocf.berk...play;num=1043170706
Do you invert me at all? [Ling, May 28 2006]

This is baked in the UK. http://www.london-d...vinyl-lettering.htm
[xandram, May 30 2006]

//(the precise quantity of sense will be determined at a later date)// Precisely fourteen croissants on May 27th, 12:05. One more at 12:15.

Erm. I wear glasses, which are removed while I'm in the hairdresser's chair. Can you make the letters REALLY big?

I can read mirror writing quite easily. Am I even odder than I'd previously thought?
-- baconbrain, May 27 2006


Welcome back [NTG]! Watch out, there's someone trying to steal your greatness...
-- Jinbish, May 27 2006


A salon could put yet another mirror behind you, and in that mirror, all adverts that are on the wall which is in front of you are put right again.
-- Ling, May 27 2006


nice but too easy to bake. no new technologies involved. sorry. i would have loved voting for an inverted Plasma TV though...
-- sweet, May 27 2006


<pedant> Your title isn't mirrored, it's just reversed. </pedant>

<sweet smile> [jinbish] And who would that be? </sweet smile>
-- DesertFox, May 27 2006


A better challenge would be to make the adverts ambigrammatic. That way they could be read equally be the employers of the salons, who probably make up a fair proportion of their customers.
-- hidden truths, May 27 2006


<pedant> It's only our gravi-centric, approximately bilaterally symmetrical condition that creates the _illusion_ that mirrors produce laterally inverted images.
-- spidermother, May 28 2006


Link. Only front/back inversion.
-- Ling, May 28 2006


I like [hidden truth's] idea.aedi [s'hturt neddih] ekil I
-- phundug, May 29 2006


with use of polarized light and filters you could make them so that only the reversed ads are visible in the mirror and only the normal ads are visible when viewed directly.
-- jhomrighaus, May 29 2006


[+] It wouldn't surprise me if next week these posters of yours are up and about .. if I was an advertising mogul, I would come to the HB for ideas.

Incidently there is a barbershop in a small town near me called 'the barbershop'. Not very spectacular, but what draws the attention of everyone who walks past it is the fact its' name/banner/sign is upside down.
-- kuupuuluu, May 30 2006


This is baked in the UK. [see link, read half way down]
-- xandram, May 30 2006


Baked in Klockit, too - they sell a quartz clock movement that runs backwards, specifically for this purpose.
-- elhigh, Jun 07 2006



random, halfbakery