If you’re more motivated by price, there’s great news. If you’re moved to appreciate high-priced styling tools, you can spend a couple of hundred dollars on a flat iron. Whichever professional flat irons you experiment with, I do recommend you start with the very best that you can afford. Ceramic heaters and titanium-infused plates allow you to style with high heat and less damage. My personal favorites are the nano-ionic models, which reduce frizz and leave you with smooth, sleek hair. Professional flat irons come with many options. My first attempts were pitiful, because, despite her advice, I bought a cheap unit, with plates that were too large and left weird-looking dents everywhere in my hair.įinally, when I bit the bullet and tried out the best professional blow dryer I could afford, the results were so noteworthy that it convinced me to invest in another one of these professional tools and ditch a whole bunch of other cheapies. Hence, I began my search for a salon hair straightener, and my new, much more polite, hairdresser suggested I could work some styling magic with a professional flat iron. (I’ve joked about my “dog hair” ever since a stylist off-handedly referred to mine as such.) It’s easier said than done, especially if your mane is thick, curly, and coarse, or more akin to German Shepherd than Gisele Bündchen.
Just once, I’d actually like all that effort to result in the silky smooth, shiny, straight hair that you see on those shampoo commercials, or on Hollywood’s red carpet. With the aid of a two inch curling iron, and 45 minutes total time, it’s almost right. Other days, I opt for a blowout, and with some fast and hot blow-drying, deft maneuvering of a paddle brush, and a big round brush, I can get it nearly straight. With the right shampoo, enough hair product, and slow diffusing, I can sometimes coax it into almost ringlet-like waves. My hair lies somewhere smack dab in the middle of wavy and fuzzy.