Wednesday, May 1, 2024

The 6 Best Hair Straightening Irons Tested

hair irons

On the other hand, the cord has the shortest length out of the entire group, and the digital display and interface aren't necessarily our favorites. Our biggest gripe, however, is that this hair straightener feels like you need to apply more clamping pressure to ensure the plates make full contact with your hair. It may not be our first pick, but it will straighten your hair well for considerably less money than the high-end models. It's a good option for anyone pinching pennies or those who only occasionally straighten their hair.

Do flat irons damage hair?

In a Lab test, we found that the flat iron heats up fast, reaching 99% of its claimed temperature in just 30 seconds. Revlon’s super long, 1-inch-wide tool gave lasting straightness to even the longest, thickest hair. It's pricey, but one tester said they were "extremely satisfied with the way my hair looked afterwards," with another marveling at how "smooth" their hair felt. It also got a perfect score among testers for not burning their face, scalp or neck, even for those who said that's been "an issue I've had with other flat irons," making it a solid choice for those who aren't confident using a heat tool quite yet.

hair irons

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For instance, it offers 50 different settings instead of giving you the option to choose the temperature in degrees. Still, we think its straightening performance is so good that it outweighs these minimal flaws, making it a wonderful alternative for anyone shopping for a high-end hairstyling tool. However, if you choose the wrong one (or use one for too long), they can damage your hair.

CHI Original 1-inch Digital Ceramic Iron

You also won't have to worry about whether you left it on or not — it shuts off automatically after 30 minutes of inactivity. In addition to the plate materials, our experts recommend looking at features like size of the plates and a digital display to monitor the temperature. “The heat transfer from titanium is intense, quick and, if used frequently or improperly, can create irreversible heat damage and breakage,” says Hill.

Best for Fine Hair

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This one from BaBylissPRO heats up super quickly and has a wide, adjustable range of temperatures. “Any time there’s friction, there’s tugging and snagging and fatiguing of the hair,” said Trefor Evans. The ceramic tourmaline plates didn't pass over hair as effortlessly as we would have liked, and we were a little concerned with the performance of this product in our temperature accuracy tests. We measured a maximum temperature of 464°F — quite a bit higher than the claimed maximum temperature of 455°F and high enough that we would be concerned about damaging hair at the highest setting. It only has a 6' cord, and the interface isn't the most user-friendly, as it gives you 30 temperature settings to choose from, rather than just letting you choose a temperature. We blame frizz and flyaways on bad weather and high humidity, but sometimes it starts with what tool we’re using — and Drybar just came to the rescue with their new innovation.

Wider plates are bulkier and increase the chances of accidentally clamping the same sections of hair multiple times, and the chance of warping, such that the plates don’t meet evenly across the whole surface. Plus, they’re not great for people with curly or textured hair, who need to focus on small sections of hair at a time, or people with short hair. Likewise, we aimed for straighteners with plates on the long side, but not so long the straightener wouldn’t be maneuverable. Anyone can use a flat iron, but how well a particular iron will work on your hair—how straight your hair will get, how long it will stay that way, and how much damage it will endure from the heat—depends on a variety of factors. The curlier or more textured your hair, the more heat, time, or styling products you may need to invest to get the style you want; the finer your hair, the more easily it may be damaged by high temperatures.

A tighter clamp may have led us to see more defined curls on fine hair, but we were glad that it was loose enough to avoid clamp marks. This gadget worked like a pro; it has a super smooth glide with zero snag, and the slightly longer plate allowed me to include a bit more hair in the iron per pass without compromising the effectiveness, which ultimately saved me time. The floating plates are more versatile than the standard, static plates on many other irons—they compress just the right amount of hair to create smooth and straight styles or a subtle curve at my ends. When it comes to plate size, stylist Tippi Shorter said that a 1-inch-wide plate is the best option for most people.

Best for Curling Hair

It took around a minute to reach 94% of its claimed temperature, but our pros were disappointed that there was no audible tone to indicate when it reaches temperature. It earned the top score for maintaining hair straightness in our technical test, though the lowest score for keeping hair straight, shiny and frizz-free all day long, according to consumer testers, so make sure you use an anti-frizz serum. When it came to the actual physical action on the hair, she explained that many ways of smoothing hair, such as doing a blowout or using a hot iron, rely on heating it up and stretching it out.

hair irons

BEST HAIR STRAIGHTENER FOR DAMAGED HAIR

However, ceramic-coated plates often need to be routinely checked since the coating can wear and chip away — in fact, when the metal beneath (usually aluminum) is exposed, it can cause damage to your hair, says Bertin. This Paul Mitchell model is a straightening powerhouse for those with long, thick or coarse hair, and its ceramic construction and temperature variability make it a good fit for fine hair as well. While most flat irons are best when used on 1-inch sections of hair, I found that this iron’s broad plates offered extended surface area to cover bigger sections of hair. This allowed me to work faster to smooth my shoulder blade-length strands and tame frizz from roots to ends.

The cord is 9 feet long, giving you plenty of space to plug it into an outlet that is located far away from a mirror. The straightener itself is 13 inches long, which we found to be the perfect length to wield while styling hair—and the plates are around 3.5 inches long, plenty sufficient to capture a good-size section of hair. We found that it's not just the plate material but also the overall geometry of the hair straightening iron that influences glide performance, as some models require much more force than others to ensure the plates make full contact with your hair. We found the CHI G2, the Hot Tools Ceramic Signature Series, and the Remington S5500 to perform best in our glide test. They had the least resistance in our side-by-side straightening test with the hair extensions.

We always enlist a range of testers for any review, but hair-care products and tools are another story. While some can be used across different hair textures, lengths, curl patterns, thicknesses, colors (natural and unnatural), and concerns, many are created with specific consumers and their needs in mind. If you place your hand at the bottom of the iron while the plates are closed, you risk getting some skin caught in the hinge. The hinge on the Pro G2 Digital is similarly designed—with the plates closed, there’s enough space at the bottom of the device to trap a finger.

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