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So, how do you go about finding a hair straightener that best suits your hair type and lets you style your hair as you wish? We curated this little list of pointers to mind when buying your next hair straightener:
Let’s start with finding out your hair type. Grab a pencil and draw a simple straight line on a piece of paper. Now, contrast it with a strand of your hair placed side-by-side. If your hair appears more distinct than the line, you belong to the thick hair club. If the strand of hair looks fainter next to the line, you have got fine hair. If the results are anything in between, consider yourself a medium-hair type.
If you are a fine-hair girl, you have got to be most conscious as fine hair is most prone to heat damage. Even the slightest of heat can soak the moisture out of it and leave it looking like a crimped wire. You need to keep multiple pointers in your head, starting from choosing a hair straightener with multiple heat settings. Then, select a hair straightener with either ceramic or tourmaline plates. Ceramic plate hair straighteners are the most commonly available ones. We will learn later in this post as to why choose ceramic or tourmaline plates for fine hair.
Aha! The lucky ones! Your hair type is comparatively immune to straightening damage but that doesn’t mean you can subject your hair to whatever range of temperature you find. Titanium plates will be most effective for your hair type. Remember to select a hair straightener with wide plates otherwise, it will take you multiple passes to just work on a tiny section of your hair and you wouldn’t like it. You can be quite at ease not finding multiple heat settings as you don’t have to bother about heat control.
The heating plates of flat irons are made of specific materials, such as ceramic, tourmaline, and titanium. Selecting a hair straightener with the right plate surface is very important because this plate material is in direct contact with your hair and determines how much heat is released to your hair. If you have the choice, go for keratin-infused heating plates as they glide smoothly and give a shiny finish to your straightened hair. Now, let’s find out which plates to go for:
Don’t be overwhelmed! Let me break it down for you first. Ceramic ones are the most versatile ones. They evenly distribute heat through your hair causing the least damage. They are best for fine, short, and thin hair as they can hold and control heat.
Tourmaline plates are a must for dry, frizzy, and treated hair. They are great for seamlessly distributing controlled heat through your hair while not drawing out moisture. They are the kind that gives you the sleek and lustrous finish seen on magazine covers.
Titanium plate or titanium coated is the gold standard of flat iron heating plates. They are best suited for curly, coarse, and thick hair. They heat up instantly and are capable of achieving very high temperatures. These are the only type of hair straighteners that work on 3C or 4C-type hair. They are meant for professional use and are extremely pricey, but you don’t need to worry because most common hair types can do without them.
If you have a mighty volume of hair, you don’t want to struggle with a narrow-plate flat iron that would take forever to do the job. Similarly, if you have short hair and you want to doll up in thin beachy waves, you don’t want a wide-plate hair straightener that would never render the look you are going for. So, make the choice depending on your hair volume and texture. Go for narrow plates for fine and short hair; for thick and long hair, wide plates should be your pick.
A business traveler won’t expect the same utilities from a hair straightener as a party girl. It’s for you to decide whether you need a travel-size flat iron that compactly slides in your luggage, or you need one with a large rotatable cord that reaches the other end of your room.
Additionally, many straighteners are multi-purpose. You can use them to not just straighten your messy, unruly tresses but also create a number of playful looks. How it works is that you got to look for a hair straightener with round edges to create nice curls and look for a hair straightener with crimper attachments if you want the in-vogue crimping effect.
Ultimately, your requirements and standards best define the kind of hair straightener you want. Affordability is one such criterion. Don’t go for ultra-cheap ones as they have metal plates that will ruin your hair over several sessions. Have a trusted professional hair styling accessories brand in mind while scrolling for the features you want in your hair straightener and choose accordingly. If you ask for my recommendations, I will suggest Mr. Barber’s Keratin Shine Pro. The reason I vouch for this is that it combines most of the features I have mentioned in this post that allows you to create all those striking hair styles without damaging your hair.