RAMSBOTTOM boffin Lorna Roscow is set to make heads turn in Japan with her invention.

For her unique Tryle Style concept, which allows hair salon customers to see how they would suit a variety of styles, is to be featured on a Tokyo-based TV station.

Lorna, who runs her own Inventors Highway company, is hopeful that the massive television exposure could see her unique invention being bought and manufactured in a country famous for its technological wizardry. She has spent eight years and £20,000 in perfecting Tryle Style which helped her become a finalist in the innovation category of the prestigious British Hairdressing Business Awards.

"Tryle Style enables people to see what they'd look like with different hair styles and hair colours," explained Lorna.

"t's a very simple idea and involves transparencies of individual hair styles and a mirror. In essence, the transparencies are suspended in front of the face and the customer can look through the transparency and into the mirror."

But her hair salon invention almost came a cropper when a big name in the UK hairdressing industry borrowed the unit and accidentally destroyed it. Luckily, Lorna was able to salvage one of of the prototypes but was left with only four of the original 28 transparencies.

After coming across the Ramsbottom woman's invention on the Internet, Takaomi Tokumitsu from Tokyo's Channel 12 travelled to Lorna's shop in Square Street to film Tryle Style.

"The TV station is doing a series of programmes entitled Worldwide Inventions, showing two from each country they select," added the mother-of-two.

And Lorna hopes that the programme could generate significant interest in Tryle Style and lead to an offer to buy the patent.

Lorna has also opened her own Inventors Highway shop in Ramsbottom which acts as a shop window for the products and services of other like-minded boffins.