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What We Love: With advanced heat technology and non-snagging ceramic plates, this iron protects fine hair as it straightens. You might think steam would be the enemy of straight hair, but it actually moisturizes it while the heat flattens it into shape. According to L’Oreal, this allows the Steampod to gently dry the outer shaft without drying the core. When you go outside, especially in humid conditions, the hair then doesn’t absorb any of the extra moisture and remains frizz-free. We blame frizz and flyaways on bad weather and high humidity, but sometimes it starts with what tool we’re using — and Drybar just came to the rescue with their new innovation. The titanium plates on its styling iron slid through our hair like butter and took no stragglers in the process. The results? Hair so soft and smooth we couldn’t stop touching it. Ionic technology: when there’s too much positive charge on each hair strand, they begin to repel each other, making hair static and flyaway. This technology helps to neutralise the charge, smoothing strands down instead. Heat-wise, this Revlon offers the most temperature settings of any straighteners I’ve tried. There are 10 to choose from, ranging from 285 degrees Fahrenheit (140 Celsius) up to 455 degrees Fahrenheit (235 Celsius), which makes this a great choice for every hair type. I expected the copper ceramic plates to pull on the hair, due to the fact there are four of them and they’re so far apart, but they glide over it easily. The plates are also smaller than I had imagined—each one is 1/2 an inch whereas standard plates measure 1 inch—but they still cover similar widths of hair as standard straighteners. The biggest downside to the design is that it’s much harder to use these straighteners for curls. Not impossible, but difficult. — Victoria Woollaston-Webber
Just as the bristles can determine the shine and volume of your hair, the type of plate can further enhance the desired result. The most common and popular type of heated plate is made from ceramic, which glides through your hair easier than others. Why is this so important? The ceramic prevents pulling and tugging, which stops breakage and further damage. In combination with the right bristles, you can end up with glossy, healthy, and voluminous hair. Other options available can produce similar results, such as ion technology, which distributes heat more event and prevents frizz to the ends. However, you may end up reversing the process if you use the maximum heat – this can actually strip away the keratin in your tresses, doing more harm than good. Cleaning your flat at least once a week keeps it in top-notch condition. Without a regular wipe down, build-up from heat protectants and other styling products can impact the amount of heat that is transferred from the plates to your hair, meaning that even with a high temperature, you’ll need to do more passes to get the same result. What We Love: The design of this iron is easy to maneuver, so you can take as much time as you’d like to create an array of curly and wavy styles without your arm getting tired. Plus, the flat iron came with a detachable comb that we used on days we craved big, beachy waves.It helped hold our hair in place as we styled, although, the comb prongs are a little close together, meaning we had to work through our hair slowly to avoid tugging. What We Love: The hair straightener glides through hair seamlessly and its silicone grip and swivel cord make it easy to maneuver and achieve any style.Frankly put, our hair looked incredible after using the tool’s steaming feature. Think: Shinier, glossier, and healthier hair, and it wasn’t even a painstaking process to see these results. As steam tools were new to some of us, we appreciated that there were downward facing arrows on the tool that we used to guide us through the straightening process and ensure we were holding it correctly. We also like that we only had to press one button to toggle between the three different temperatures as we straightened our hair. With over five years’ experience in beauty and health journalism, Florence has written for ELLE, Women’s Fitness, Sister Magazine, National Geographic Traveller and many more, with a strong sustainability angle thread through much of her work. What We Love: The steam function helps prevent heat damage, managing to straighten even the curliest hair without causing harm.
One of the best parts about flat irons is their incredible versatility. When we say the sky is the limit for how many styles you can create with an iron, we actually mean it. For example, by holding the hair straightener horizontally, you can build your hair’s body by adding waves. And with a little practice, you can take it to the next level to fully curl too — just twist small sections of your strands between the plates as you pull it down. Due to its maneuverable features and lightweight design, we found the BabylissPRO Nano Titanium Dual Ionic Flat Iron did an exceptional job at curling our hair. Since curly hair can be more prone to frizz and, let’s face it, generally requires some extra maintenance to keep it in top shape, we sought a flat iron that would be gentle on our delicate coils while still giving us the straight look we want. This Hot Tools iron gets the job done: The smooth plates and curved edges seemed like they were designed just for our hair as the rounded surfaces made for bouncy curls, rather than sharp crimps we sometimes see in more rectangular options, and they swiftly tamed those pesky baby flyways close to our faces. But the ion-neutralising properties of a ceramic hair straightener don’t have the same effect, so you won’t wreak as much heat havoc on your delicate tresses – which is good news all round. However, there are some cons, too…These features, along with a swivel cord, that enabled us to easily reach all the way around our head, were especially beneficial when we used the narrow plates to work in small sections and create curls. A tighter clamp may have led us to see more defined curls on fine hair, but we were glad that it was loose enough to avoid clamp marks. The use of steam opens the hair follicle. This lets moisture in while straightening or curling and makes steam straighteners typically less harsh and drying, particularly on curly or more delicate hair types. Our models were impressed with how glossy and defined their hair looked after using the Revamp Progloss Steamcare and after a fortnight of use, many said their hair felt softer and seemed to be in better condition overall. There was also a noticeable improvement in how long fresh colour lasted on hair when using these straighteners. Remington’s 'OPTIheat' technology targets heat where your hair most needs it, which delivers genuine long-lasting results and the PRO+ setting keeps the temperature at a responsible 185°C to protect your hair. Pros: Compact yet powerful; cord-free design allows for more freedom of movement; making creating complex hair styles easier; USB-C charger Incredible results are easy when you are well-equipped. Find out why TYMO is the best hair straightener brand for getting excellent, salon-worthy styles in no time.
On paper, it also doesn’t appear to offer much versatility in terms of temperature settings but this is the same across the entire GHD range because 185°C is, according to the brand, the optimum temperature to achieve maximum styling ability with minimal hair damage. It’s also a shame that GHD has relied on an older version of its dual-zone sensor technology, taken from the mid-range GHD Gold, instead of the ultra-zone technology seen on the hair brand’s flagship model, the Platinum Plus (below). In reality, this seemingly means very little to the performance of the Unplugged, and its ability to protect our hair while styling. Certainly not to a noticeable extent. Yet when paying a premium price, you expect premium technology. Negative ions may sound, well, negative, but they are in fact a good thing – and one great advantage of the ceramic hair straightener is that it actually produces negative ions! What We Love: The short barrel fits in our hands nicely and is the perfect size for styling short hair. But with this in mind, do handle your straighteners with care – no one wants to accidentally touch hot hair straighteners (ouch)! The heat is evenly distributed When we wanted to exert the least amount of effort and see the highest payoff, the ion Magnesium Flat Iron gave us the best results. At an affordable price point, its design included everything we wanted from a hassle-free hot tool: It automatically turned off after 45 minutes, beeped when it reached our desired temperature, and thoughtful placement of the heat setting buttons, which are placed on the inside of the tool to avoid accidentally bumping the wrong one while we used it.London-based hairstylist Hollie Rose Clarke says ions in hair tools keep the cuticle layer of your hair smooth, so you'll get a shinier, frizz-free result. “Think of a strand of your hair as being the size of my arm, covered in fish scales (the cuticles)," she says. "When the hair is damaged, they open slightly, resulting in dry, frizzy, and weak hair. When the hair is healthy they are closed, resulting in your hair feeling smoother and stronger.” We were a little dismayed to find ourselves going over sections multiple times, as this might counter any protective benefits from the aforementioned features, but the GHD finish was still as glossy as you’d hope for the price. The straightener heats up in exactly 15 seconds and automatically switches off after 30 minutes, just in case you forget. For the most part, we were able to run it through our hair without tangling in our strands, though we did notice minimal shedding when we used it on fine hair. However, across hair types 1C to 4B, the ceramic tourmaline plate evenly distributed heat to prevent a fried, crunchy look. Ceramic plates: they are slower to warm up than other materials, but they distribute heat more evenly. They tend to be cheaper too, but are more prone to chipping. If you’re new to using hair straighteners or other hot tools, you won’t be intimidated by the FHI HEAT Platform flat iron we tested. The simple, intuitive tool didn’t require us to watch hours of tutorials or practice on an old Barbie before we were able to straighten our hair with ease.
Your trusted pair of straighteners should last you between two to three years (depending on how well you look after them). Before cleaning, ensure the iron is turned off and has completely cooled down. Then, Kee recommends using a damp cloth with a bit of rubbing alcohol and carefully wiping down the plates to remove any debris. She also likes to dip a cotton swab into rubbing alcohol to clean the iron’s edges and crevices.Explore the cherry trees of Tokyo from your bathroom with this pink hair straightening brush from Tymo. With its trusted heat distribution design, you can enjoy salon-quality hairstyles without the fuss or the cost. It features dense bristles, which evenly distribute the heat and detangle even the toughest knots without tugging at the ends. In a rush in the morning? Thanks to its record heating time of only 20 seconds, you can get your desired style in a flash without hurting your hair in the process. One of the newest innovations in hair styling technology comes courtesy of Dyson (naturally). The Air Strait isn’t a traditional hair straightener, per se, but it takes your hair from wet to dry by skipping the hot plates and using directed hair flow to dry and straighten simultaneously. If you can look past its slightly odd shape, the Revlon Double Straight’s four-plate design makes a lot of sense. As you pass the Double Straight over your hair, the first two plates straighten, while the second two ‘reinforce’ the style. This effectively allows you to make two passes in one, which reduces both the time it takes to complete the style and the risk of heat damage. I found this to be largely true, although to get the full effect you need to pass it over your hair slightly slower than you would do normally, which cuts into the time-saving benefits a little. The hair straightener heated up in about 30 seconds and had five easily adjustable heat settings to choose from (140 degrees, 230 degrees, 300 degrees, 370 degrees, and 450 degrees). It slid through all hair types easily while straightening (although we felt a little tug while curling). The swivel cord was super long — up to 12 feet — and when purchasing this flat iron, you can choose from a few different width options to achieve your ideal look.
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