Review (4/5): Long fine hair has shape and style!
I have abundant long, fine hair which is stick straight unless it’s on vacation in say, Sanibel Island FL, Cancun, or on summer days in Washington DC. I work from home most of the time, so my hair is generally air dried and worn down, but I wanted a tool that would help me style my hair - some way, any way! - while on business trips without devoting precious carry on space to both a blow dryer and a round brush.
This device has given me exactly what I wished for! I pack it in my bag, air dry my hair as usual, brush it out carefully with a hair bristle brush, and then start hot brushing. I don’t do anything fancy, just turn my head upside down to get some volume at the crown, then run the brush through my hair to get it orderly. I might wrap a few ends around the barrel to get some shape, and style it away from my face, but this device is far less technically demanding than a round brush/dryer set up or a traditional curling iron. I like that I can use this spontaneously, so if I get sucked into some other task while my hair dries, I haven’t missed the chance to style it. My fine hair is prone to tangling so I am an admitted frequent user of silicone, so it was important to me that I not style my hair every day - just when I need to look nice.
Two caveats: I tried to add volume at the roots by wrapping my hair around the barrel all the way to the bottom, or wrapping just the bottom, but both approaches led to terrifying tangle-ups. As someone who has had to have her boyfriend physically cut the bristles off a round brush to free her, perhaps I’m just lacking technique. But if you get your hair wrapped around this barrel going two directions, you’d better turn this baby off quick or your roots will get scorched.
Secondly, having learned how to use a straightener to create attractive curls, I’d hoped that the straightener feature of this device combined with the bristles would allow me to follow the same procedure with smoother results. Not so. This didn’t work for me at all. If you used this device in straightener mode to achieve curls, I may need lessons from you. It might just be a matter of how willing my hair is to hold curl (not very).
Anyway, while this device didn’t let me create straightener curls, it’s otherwise been great!