not long ago, i bought a skinny flat iron: the conair infinity nano (they had a totally cheesy marketing ploy piggybacking off of ipods). but it came w/a heat resistent travel case/counter mat which has totally come in handy. i didn’t buy the cheapest one on the rack this time, and i think it’s paid off.. nice small size, heats up really quickly, seems pretty effective.

http://www.conair-store.com/product_detail.asp?T1=CON+CS43

i don’t know how anyone uses a curling iron every day. having to hold it in place while the curl sets is my downfall, and you don’t have to do that with the flat iron technique. looove! plus the whole getting the hair around the barrel is frustrating for me, too.. it’s all too much to bear in the morning.

so now…. i take my pick comb, divide off my hair from the ears up, clip it, and curl the bottom, then the top. i never used to clip off my hair like that when attempting to curl, but it makes a world of difference. and i hold the straightener Vertically and curl away from my face (rather than the horizontal way i’ve seen a lot on youtube) to achieve the spiral-type curls. so the sections of hair that i curl are as about as long as the hot plates on my curling iron, but around 1″ wide. so far, i’ve had to tilt my head to the side as i pull the straightener through, so that the hair doesn’t slip out. then i muss it all up, shape a few curls, spray and voila. i’m gonna see if i can get it down to 10 minutes!

the first few attempts did not curl, and sometimes it still doesn’t for some unknown reason. i think the trick is to really twist the iron around at least 180 degrees. then you pull it down the shaft of the hair, kinda like how you curl a balloon string with scissors. seems counter-intuitive, but it works! getting the timing/speed down is a bit of a trick, but not that tough.

this girl uses the straight iron vertically, unlike most youtube videos, but she twirls the straightener all the way down as she pulls. i do not, because i’m not that talented, and there’s no need (omg she makes weird noises, though. did not watch the whole thing):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lnmed0rlofM

and if you can get past the doe-eyed pose off at the start, this girl does pretty good demos, and has a million different ways to curl your hair:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lho-EdO4sSY&feature=channel

Also, my hair notoriously does not like to hold curl that I put in with irons and such, even though it is slightly naturally wavy, so I got tired of working so hard to put curl or wave in, just to have it fall back out. I though it was interesting in the video how the woman recommended using both a curl enhancing shampoo & to let hair air dry before curl styling. Maybe I will try that next time.

Just curious, what kind of flat iron do you use and do you curl all over? Does it last?

the awesomest part about it is that it’s so fast. waaay faster than a curling iron. and another great thing is that with the rollers, my ends would turn out to be the curliest part, and that wasn’t really the hairstyle shape i was going for.. it doesn’t work as well on short, shoulder-length hair for my desired aesthetic.

and there’s more control, at least for someone like me who is still a little roller-inept. girl, you gotta try it (if you haven’t already, that is).