To be clear, I didn’t buy this curling iron for myself — it was a gift from a beauty-editor friend who got it for free — nor would I have ever thought to. It has a pink zebra print. It’s from a brand I’ve never heard of, and I’m a label whore. There is nothing chic about it. But of every hair tool I have ever tried — from Harry Josh, GHD, Chi, Hot Tools — this one is far and away the best.
First and foremost, the barrel does not have a clamp. Instead, you use your hands to maneuver the hair manually around the very lightweight ceramic barrel, which creates a much more natural look (with the clamp I always get prom hair and/or creases). If you wrap your hair tightly around the wand, it creates Sarah Jessica Parker ringlets. If you wrap it slightly looser, you get Gisele waves. It curls my hair much faster than any other curling iron I’ve used before (usually about 25 minutes for the whole head), without any frizziness (this is supposedly because the wand emits negative ions that block moisture absorption), and the style lasts. In the time I used to spend thinking about when and if I should wash and ‘do’ my hair I could have easily watched an entire Netflix series. Now I no longer wrestle with these thoughts — I leave my hair for days, sometimes a week, and with a little dry shampoo I’m good to go. In fact I often like it more the longer I let it go.
If you didn’t know me as the awkward Jewish pre-teen with the insane coils, which were then destroyed by 20 years of chemical relaxers, you might think I was born with this head of gently falling locks. And the way the curling iron works couldn’t be easier: There’s an on-off switch. You plug it in and turn it on and … that’s it. You don’t have to choose a temperature (why any company thinks I know what temperature to set my hair at is beyond me), or wait for more than a minute for it to heat up. It’s not filled with features that have no use. It just works. And don’t worry: It comes in other colors besides pink zebra.
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