Few things are more infuriating than reading advice on how to curl your hair when the very first step is “Find the best curling iron for you.” Well, no duh. Having the right-size (and -shaped) barrel makes a world of difference in the kind of curl you’re looking for—as does how hot the iron gets, when you put on hairspray, and the way you hold the iron. But let’s forget all that for a second and assume you (a) probably aren’t coming here for pageant curls and (b) just want something easy to enhance whatever texture you’ve got—or boost what you don’t. We polled our staff to see who’s struggled to find an iron that’s both simple to use and will make a curl stay put, and sent them home with dozens to test. Here are the innovative, intuitive curling wands and irons they now swear by.
As a country musician, I’ve tried literally every single curling iron and wand you can imagine—expensive ones, high-tech ones, you name it. My wavy hair isn’t only a part of who I am, when I’m on stage, it’s my source of confidence. So needless to say, when I curl my hair, I need it to hold up through an entire performance and look perfect.
I get asked so many times, “How do you do your hair?” and “What kind of curling iron are you using?” Fans always assume it’s something really exclusive or that it costs a lot of money, so it’s always fun to see the look on their faces when I say, nope, you can actually buy it at Target. It’s a regular old Conair one-inch barrel, and nothing holds my fine hair like it.
I started using it when I was 16 and worked at Dollywood, a theme park in Tennessee obviously inspired by Dolly Parton. A fellow performer, who kind of looked like Dolly herself, always had the most amazing hair, so one day I begged her for secret. I figured she had to being using some kind of special curling iron or hair spray to make it look so incredible. So imagine my surprise when she told me that she bought it for $10. I honestly almost didn’t believe her.
Since then, it’s gone with me everywhere. It was especially a game-changer in my early days in Nashville, when I performed in different shows to try and get a record deal. Even once I started going on tour and could afford something in the triple digits, I’d always go back to my trusty Conair. There’s just something about it that makes the perfect curl for me. It gets hot enough that your hair doesn’t stick to it (even if you put hairspray on it!), and it hasn’t damaged my hair ever. The key to getting my waves just right is that I don’t put the curling iron all the way down my hair. I take about two inches out of the iron at the end, so it creates a wave. Then, I tease it—like really tease it.
PHOTO: Courtesy of Carly Pearce
But my love for this curling iron isn’t only that it’s dependable. At this point, it’s also become symbolic of something that’s stuck with me through some of the hardest but most impactful years of my life. Even when jobs were tough or I’ve been traveling away from family and friends, it’s always been something that makes me feel the most “ready” and myself. I’ve lost it on airplanes, left it in hotel rooms, and more, but with the thrifty price tag, the great thing is that I can always just buy it again.
I can firmly say that this is the best curling iron, and the proof is that I’m still using it almost 15 years later at a very different stage of life. It’s a good reminder that just because something isn’t very expensive, doesn’t mean it’s not great.
I’m a sucker for chic packaging. I also covet messy, undone, cool-girl hair, so like every other editor at the launch party for Kristin Ess‘s new hot tools line, it was love at first site. Ess, if you’re unfamiliar, caters to the hair of a long list of celebrities you’ve probably used as inspo for a haircut at some point: Jenna Dewan, Lucy Hale, and Lili Reinhart are all among her clients. The tools, like her low-maintenance hair care products, are both her super beautiful and affordable—nothing is over $100—and all available at Target.
The lineup features all the standards. There’s a dryer, flat irons, and curling irons of various sizes—all in a very Instagrammable white and rose gold palette, and all something you’d want to use. But the real standout is her Soft Wave Pivoting Wand Curling Iron. It’s got a 1¼ inch barrel, which is perfect for creating looser waves, and no clamp—like a typical wand. Where things get interesting, though—as the name states—is the fact that the barrel is able to pivot; meaning you can use it as a standard vertical wand, or you can click it into place at a 90 degree angle, converting it into a curling bar.
The iron is designed to pivot to take stress off your arms, and I definitely found it easier to work with than curlers I’ve used in the past. I’m not great at styling my hair and haven’t reached for a curling iron since prom, but using this one was shockingly simple.
I always end up either wrapping my hair too tightly or clamping it in a weird place, resulting in pageant curls or creases. But because of the angle, you’re almost forced to loosely drape your hair around the barrel, creating those cool beachy waves the women on Ess’s Instagram always have.
At the launch event, when the stylist used the iron on me, she actually wrapped my hair around the iron while twisting it (starting with the iron upright and ending with my hair around the barrel at 90 degrees), creating a softer effect she referred to as “bending,” instead of curling. I, however, am not as dexterous or talented, and found it much easier to just keep the iron bent except for when curling the part of my hair that frames my face—there, I use it like a regular wand. It does take a minute to get used to the shape (I burned my finger but I also neglected the included protective glove), but once I got the motions down, I was able to curl my whole head in about 15 minutes.
The results? Those perfect, messy, voluminous waves I’m always chasing. Maybe I’m a curling iron girl after all.
I like to think that I’m the Rodin of hair curling. After several years of practice, I’ve developed a routine that can transform my stubbornly straight, fine hair into sculpted, voluminous curls in an hour tops. I use a Conair curling wand that I’ve had since high school, on the highest heat setting possible, to manually wind one-inch sections of my hair around the barrel, apply hairspray, and brush out into large waves. New hot tools have come along since the mid-2000s that could presumably make luscious curls in even less time, and without the heat damage I’ve likely inflicted on myself—but of the methods I’ve tried, my curling wand routine is the only one that works.
You can imagine my hesitation, then, when Glamour’s beauty editors whipped out the new Chi Volcanic Lava Spin N Curl in a meeting and suggested I take it for a spin. If Chi’s “Volcanic” curls were what the box advertised—tiny, defined loops that brought “Our Song”-era Taylor Swift and my look for prom in 2012 to mind—I leaned towards passing. The tool’s design only made me question it further (and elicited a collective “WTF” from our edit team): it’s a large red device with no visible curling barrel in sight. “Tulip-shaped” is the polite way to describe the open-mouthed contraption with an internal iron. I was immediately reminded of the Demogorgon’s head on Stranger Things. (I.e., not something I’d want to feed my hair to, even if it meant Karlie Kloss-like waves were waiting on the other side.)
Before potentially endangering my own hair, I did some research with an Instagram deep-dive like any self-respecting millennial. I couldn’t ignore the surprisingly attractive results (prom curls they were not), or the semi-ASMR experience of watching the Spin N Curl work its magic on head after head. In brief clips from stylists who got their hands on the tool early, strands of hair are vacuumed into the tool’s curling chamber and wound around an internal rotating iron. Then they’re released as loose, spiraling waves in a matter of seconds. Women with hair types ranging from pin-straight to wavy who were part of these early previews seemed to reach general consensus: This iron looks crazy, but it actually works.
Even after watching others use it with success, I couldn’t come face-to-face with the Spin N Curl on my own without wondering: Wouldn’t this tornado-thingy tangle the hell out of my hair without a seasoned stylist to operate it for me? Despite being terrified at first, I’m happy to report the answer is no. Given my hair’s fine, straight makeup, it didn’t take much coaxing for strands to make it in and out of the tool. I sectioned my hair into 1-inch pieces (smaller sections is key) that the iron wound around its internal barrel with the press of a button.
With my curling wand, I needed the smell of a faint burn to tell me my curl had set, but the Spin N Curl emitted four short beeps to let me know it was ready. The barrel automatically released my hair, and I barely had to move it to unleash a neatly wound curl. One fair warning: The thing is pretty clunky. Using it feels like a bit of a bicep workout. You have to feed your hair into the iron with one hand while holding down the curl button with the other to get the barrel moving—and the iron is heavy*.
That said, the other features make up for its weight. As much as I’ve relied on a curling wand over the years, I’ve occasionally walked away from styling sessions with burns on my fingers and neck. Thankfully, the design of this iron takes heat injuries out of the equation. Remember that intimidating barrel? It’s actually constructed to protect your fingers from burning: Per Chi, its lava technology curls hair at the lowest possible temperature for your hair type inside the iron, while the outside stays cool. (One stylist maintains that he’ll press the outside of the iron to his face at beauty conventions to demonstrate how cool it stays during styling. I won’t be testing that theory out, but it seems legit.)
PHOTO: Halie LeSavage
The lasting results were what really sold me though. I purposefully tested the iron right before bed to see how the curls would match up against a night of sleep. The next morning, I woke up to see that my hair still had modern, thick waves. A few spritzes of hairspray, and I had volume for a full day after—a result not even my beloved curling wand could bring.
.JPG)
