Hot Tools Professional CurlBar 1 Inch Curling Iron Review – Best of Beauty Winner
Hair tools have gotten decidedly weirder looking over the past few years (see: any of these), and curling wands are at the forefront of this trend (See: this one) that looks like a sex toy. Someone actually thought that bending one into a right angle would make curling hair into an easier experience.
Well, they were right.
Believe it or not, Hot Tools Professional CurlBar’s strange design actually makes curling your own hair a heck of a lot easier than usual, at least in my opinion. Because the one-inch heated rod is positioned at an ergonomic right angle, the acrobatics required to curl your own hair are substantially lowered, making styling really easy and comfortable
The shape of this Best of Beauty winner reminds me of an Allen key or a portion of a PVC pipe. On the handle, Hot Tools embedded a digital screen that allows you to set a timer that will ping you when each section is ready. You can also control the temperature, so no singed baby hairs here. Just spin the dial to the right to turn up the heat.
Here’s how you use it: Hold the handle upright so the wand is parallel to the floor, then use your fingers to wrap one-inch sections of hair from about an inch or two inches down from your roots (how low you start your curls and waves is more based on personal preference) all the way to the ends. For this particular hot tool, I highly recommending keeping and using the heat-resistant glove that comes with it, at least until you’ve had a little practice with it. I burned myself twice during my first test-run with it.
The Hot Tools Curl Bar curls long, thick hair with zero bicep burn or arm-twisting maneuvers. Sure, the coarseness (my texture is medium-coarse) of my hair makes it easy to style. but the sheer quantity of it (I have SO much hair) makes it a time-consuming (and tiring) endeavor. This iron eliminates all of that. It takes the strain off of my arms which, in turn, makes the entire process that much faster. Having timed the process, it cut five whole minutes from my fifteen-minute hairstyling sesh.
The end result is long, sexy bends — think loose beach waves that are not at all prom curls.
On days that I am in a rush but have to look presentable (i.e. times that I am running late to meeting up with a friend, or I was asked to be on camera on short notice) I’m finding that I like to reach for this curling wand above any other hot tool that I own. It’s just so easy, and no matter which way you hold the wand, it creates waves that are consistently loose and gorgeous. As intimidating as I thought this wand was, I found that I really couldn’t screw up using it.
Sure, the hair tool aisles of your favorite beauty supplies are flooded with unusually shaped devices. After my experience with the Curl Bar, my advice for when you see one of them is don’t knock it ‘til you try it.
.
