How To Choose The Right Flat Iron For Your Hair
Here is a quick summary of qualities of a good hair straightener. It is a brief outline of what to look for when buying a hair straightener.
Glide Ability – A good hair straightener should glide through your hair without pulling or tagging along strands of hair.
Number of Passes – To judge the effectiveness of a hair straightener, look at how many passes you need to make on one area to achieve the desired results. With good ones you will normally need just one pass!
Long Lasting Results – When you use a flat iron you expect to stand a while without loosing your style. Good straighteners will give all day long results.
Temperature Adjustment And Display – A hair straightener with LCD display with temperature setting makes it easy to adjust temperature and read it.
Consistent Heat – A hair flat iron should ideally hold heat constantly for the length of time you are using it. A ceramic or titanium hair straightener tend to hold heat consistently.
Heat Recovery – A good quality hair straightener should also heat up quickly if it was left idle for a while.
Lightweight – A light weight hair straightener would be ideal to have because it will not be heavy on the hand. Titanium hair straighteners are generally lighter than ceramic because the metal Titanium is light. So you will not feel fatigued quickly when using it.
Retractable and Swivel Cord – A straightener with swivel cord means you can use it without being restricted in how you move it around your head because it can turn a whole 360 degrees without entangling. A retractable one adds even more flexibility because the cord will retract according to the distance between the tool and the mains. A retractable cord also makes it easy to pack it in a travel bag.
Dual or Universal Voltage – A hair straighteners with worldwide voltage is pretty handy when you are a traveling person to other countries that may be using different voltage.
Fast Heat-Up And Fast Cool Down – Hair straighteners with titanium plates will heat up quiet fast. Quick heating up comes in handy when you are a busy person with less time. At the same time if you don’t have time, you need a flat iron that will also cool down quickly.
Indicator Lights – A hair straightener with indicator lights has the convenience of being able to tell if the flat iron is on or not.
Non Slip – When looking for a good quality hair straightener, do not forget to pay attention to the grip. A non-slip grip will make sure that the tool does not slip off your hands.
Temperature Memory – There are smart hair straighteners that would remember your last temperature settings.
Round Edged or Curved Plates – A hair straightener with curved plates minimizes the number of passes you have to make through your hair to iron out edges or bends that some square or angled plates normally make on your hair.
Automatic Shut Off – A hair straightener with automatic shut off is very safe to have because it will automatically shut off when it is not used for a certain amount of time.
Warranty – A good hair straightener will also have a good warranty period and conditions. Make sure to check the warranty conditions out.
Different Types of Hair Straighteners
Is the best type of hair straightener ceramic or titanium? This not a straight forward yes or no answer to this question because each material has its unique properties. Their unique properties make them suitable and excellent for various hair types under different conditions.
Typically a hair straightener has teflon, teflon coated, ceramic, ceramic coated or titanium, titanium coated plates. All may also be coated or combined with tourmaline for enhanced performance. A titanium hair straightener will not always be better than a ceramic hair straightener and vice versa. It depends on the hair type in terms of texture, length, health, etc.
Qualities of a good hair straightener
Quality vary from flat iron to flat iron depending on its intended use. The quality of a good hair can be judged from its brand because more often than not a reputable brands will want to uphold their good name by manufacturing quality products.
The next criterion to use to tell the quality of a good hair straightener is the type of material used on the flat iron. A ceramic or titanium plate is generally considered more quality than a Teflon plate. Further, some flat irons are ceramic or titanium coated as opposed to solid or wholly ceramic/titanium.
In addition to having titanium or ceramic plates, the plates may also be coated or infused with tourmaline. Presence of tourmaline adds to the quality of the hair straightener because it means it can emit more (negative) ions and FAR infrared rays for effective heating.
The third criterion worth looking at also, is the technology used to make the flat iron outstanding. Some top brands like T3, Cloud Nine, etc have patented technology. This means the flat iron would go an extra mile to offer more.
The forth criterion would be the features of the hair straighteners. Besides from the technology employed there must be some features that make it an excellent choice in its objective of use. These features can be divided into two parts.
One being the necessary feature which can be considered standard in light of what the flat iron is intended to achieve. A flat iron that is meant to handle or prevent frizzy hair must have FAR infrared or ionic strengthening. If you are concerned about frizzy hair you must look for a hair straightener with Ionic and FAR Infrared heat feature.
In the same token if you have thick coarse hair that is long you would be looking for a hair straightener with wider plates i.e. from 1 1/2 inch upwards.