Truth be told, I find heat styling and heat tools a little bit scary. A lot of us curly girls have had traumatic experiences with heat or chemicals that we’d rather not repeat. Therefore, it’s super important for me to use products that I trust will protect my hair whilst being effective.
Despite the anxiety I have regarding heat damage, I do know how to deal with it if it happens and I know it shouldn’t stop me from trying out new hairstyles.
I’ve actually been dying to blow-dry my hair since December and this month I finally had a window of time to do it. This is everything I used to achieve what I’m calling a ‘wavy blow-out,’ and my thoughts on each product.
Bellissima Air Wonder 8-in-1 Hot brush
It’s only recently that I’ve become familiar with this type of heat styler. I have tested out a couple of different heat brushes in my time, but this is the only one I’ve used for my entire head.
The Air Wonder has eight different accessories for drying and styling, providing multiple styling options for several hair types. I mainly used the volume and straight attachment on my curls.
The attachments and base have a ceramic and keratin coating, which help to distribute heat and ensure shine – my hair was actually abnormally shiny for a blow-out, which was fabulous.
It took me two hours to blow-dry my hair with filming (check out the video on Eliza’s Instagram page), which was reasonable, although I do wish it was slightly faster.
The only flaw I found while using the Air Wonder was that the attachments kept locking and unlocking from the base quite easily, meaning I wasted a lot of time reattaching the accessories to the base.
My favourite aspect of this tool was definitely having so many styling options. I imagine it would be a really fun tool to experiment with for people who frequently heat-style their hair.
Imbue Curl Defending Heat Protection Mist
I use this product all the time and I really trust it as a heat protectant. It has the classic sweet-smelling Imbue scent, which I love.
It’s also lightweight, has some hold, and I experience minimal heat damage as a result of using it. I highly recommend it as a regular heat protectant.
Living Proof No Frizz Styling Cream
This is a lightweight cream formula made for medium hair to encourage smoothness, shine, softness and manageability.
I’m not convinced how much smoothing this product did, but I definitely saw and felt the shine, softness and manageability.
The brand does also offer a No Frizz Smooth Styling Serum, £31, Living Proof, which could be a better option for anyone with more curly/coily/kinky textures.
Bouclème Revive 5 Hair oil
I used this to smooth down the ends of my hair and leave them a little less dry-looking while I further delay getting a trim (!).
The oil added some silkiness to my strands and again, is a super lightweight product. I was conscious of only using the lightest products so as to not weigh my hair down or make it look greasy.
Olew Haircare Curl Keeper
As someone completely new to this brand and product, I was a little hesitant to use it as I thought maybe it would revert my hair back to being curly after using the heat styler. However, It actually gave my hair some short-term hold until the weight of my hair took over.
I later realised this product is meant to be used on curly hair to help extend the hold of your curls, so I will definitely revisit this for my wash and go’s.
After blow-drying my hair with the Air Wonder and using the above products, I simply twisted up my hair into two sections, and waited before letting it loose again, which was my final style.
Although I didn’t achieve the ‘bouncy, blow-out’ I had hoped for, I still really like how the style turned out and it serves as a reminder that it’s okay if things go wrong and to never shy away from new hairstyles!
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