Hair Stylers Review February 11, 2010

Today, I am going to review 2 hair stylers: the ghd IV styler and the Philips HP 4683 SalonCurl Pro.

First, a little bit of background on me. 😛 I have long hair. It’s fairly fine and frizzy (fly away hair). Sometimes if I’m lucky, I’d wake up to perfectly straight hair. But most of the time, I’m not 😦 so my hair will stick out in all directions. I used to rebond my hair to make it totally straight and minimum maintenance is required. But rebonding had done much damage to my hair. My hair is alot thinner than before :(:(:( and rebonding also dried up my hair ALOT! :(:(:( So I stopped rebonding my hair. When my hair sticks out, I would blow it straight daily. I have a professional hair dryer. BUT blowing hair dries out my hair too … resulting in split-ends.

So last year, after getting my hair done at the salon. I had an epiphany! I would get a hair styler that can both straighten & curl my hair! after reading quite alot of reviews, I realised that the HOTTEST styler around is the ghd IV styler. The ghd styler is very popular among the professionals. It is expensive too ….. you can find out how much I paid for it from their website. :p 😛 ;P I’ve been using it almost every day (sans weekends if I don’t go out). Sometimes I use it to curl my hair too. It is my best hair investment by far! I love it to bits! When straightening, hair feels really soft and smooth after. You can read all about the wonderful ghd IV styler from their website so I’m not gonna go into too much details. lol :P:P

This post is supposed to be a hair styler review. 😛 so anyway, today I was window shopping and I decided to buy a cheap hair curler, the Philips HP 4683 SalonCurl Pro. It costs $59.00 SGD, which is about $42.80 USD. Now, let me show you the results of the hair curled by the ghd IV styler & the Philips HP 4683.

(left: ghd styled, right: Philips styled … ignore my face! I look psychotic in the philips pic :p)

Both pics were taken on the day I bought the respective stylers. Different kind of curls huh! The ghd created softer, natural curls while the Philips created tighter curls. Now the details:-

* I spent only 20 minutes with the ghd to curl a full head of hair. Philips took me about an hour. lol. This might be shorter with more practice.
* I’ve had the ghd for almost 6 months and not once did I burn myself with it. With the Philips, I’ve burnt the tips of my finger and thumb on my left hand a few times today. I ended up wearing these to prevent myself from getting burnt from the barrel of the styler. lol.

* The ghd’s plates are made of ceramic technology and so is the Philips. BUT, look at this picture. 6 months and the ghd’s plates are still good as new. The Philips’ barrel already look worn out after 1 use!!!!!! The ghd which my hair stylist uses at her salon looks a little worn like the Philips I got today but her styler is 10 years old! On the Philip’s box it says Ceramic Ultra Gliss. I guess it’s just fancy words for “coated with a thin layer ceramic”. lmao.

* ghd stylers come with universal voltage (110-230v) so basically you can bring your ghd anywhere in the world, plug it in and use it right away. awesome of what? 😀 Philips is 220-240v, but I guess it depends on where you buy your Philips. If you can buy the model in the US or in Japan, I guess it would be 110-130v.

* ghd has only 1 heat setting (I think it’s 180 degrees celcius). Philips has heat setting from 120-210 degree celcius. I’m not a professional so I don’t really know about the heat settings. But after reading a few articles on styling hair with hot irons & curlers, I deduced that the temperature required to style hair with hair iron/curler should be 180 degrees celcius to prevent hair from getting damaged.

The theory is that if your heat apparatus is not hot enough, you will have to hold your hair with the heated plates/rods longer subjecting your hair to more heat resulting in more damage. So, if your hair styler is hot enough, hair will curl in a shorter period of time and it won’t get damaged because the exposure to heat is shorter. The same theory applies to hair dryers. If you are looking to buy a hair dryer, I would recommend you look for one that is at least 1800-2200w.

* When the ghd’s power is turned on, it will beep once and then it will heat up and be ready in about 15 seconds (I think, I didn’t time, but it’s really fast). It beeps again when it’s ready. Philips heats up in 60 seconds, not too bad really. No beeping though, you will have to look at the LCD display to see if it’s ready or not. The temperature setting on the Philips is lockable, which is good. If you don’t lock it, your thumb will press the temperature selection button and mess up your temperature setting. So as I style my hair, I locked it at 180 degrees celcius. But everytime you turn the Philips off and on again, you will have to reset & lock the temperature you wish to curl your hair with. Abit troublesome there.

* ghd shuts off its power automatically after 30 minutes, and it will beep every now and then to remind you to turn the power off if you’re not using it. Philips is supposed to turn off automatically after 60 minutes but I havent’ tested this yet. It doesn’t beep.

Conclusion:
I LOVE my ghd. You MUST use one to know how awesome it is. 😛 However, if I want to get the kind of look where my curls are nearer to the roots or perfect spirals, I can’t really do it on my own with the ghd. (but if someone does it for me, I think it can be done … I’ve seen tutorials on it :P) I can achieve that with the Philips though.

Price wise, the Philips costs only about 1/6th of the ghd. lalalalalalla ~~ :P:P:P: I don’t think the lifespan of the Philips will be more than 1-2 years, seeing that the barrel already looked worn out after 1 use! If you’re just looking for a cheap curler that does the job, I’d recommend the Philips. Philips, I don’t love you but you did the job, so I kinda like you.

If you’re like me and needs both a straightener and curler and is willing to invest a hefty sum of money on your hair, then I would recommend the ghd because it is the best thing EVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :P:P;P:p:P:p In this case, awesomeness comes with a hefty price tag.
I LOVE ghd! Good Hair Days FOREVER! 😀