Three must-have hair styling tools

Hello again everyone! For March’s blogpost I have decided to write about the 3 staple must-have hair tools that will help you create most of your desired hair looks without having a million different tools for every different style. During lockdown I think we’ve all tried to declutter our lives and have a general tidy up and spring clean! So why not declutter your hair tool collection? These 3 tools are all you need as they are versatile, good quality and I absolutely love using them on myself and my clients!

GHD Gold Hair Straightener

Straighteners are a very obvious must-have for your hair tool collection, and it is so important to have a good quality straightener to reduce any damage to your hair. Poor quality hair straighteners definitely do the job of straightening your hair, but the damage they are doing underneath to the health of your hair is not worth it. GHD’s are amazing as they have a really advanced thermostat, this enables the ceramic plates to get to the optimum temperature to effectively straighten the hair, add shine and reduce the risk of overheating the hair, causing it to break and become brittle. Once they have heated up to 230 degrees celsius (the optimum temperature of styling hair whilst avoiding severe damage) they don't get any hotter than this no matter how long they are on for. Most cheaper lower quality hair straighteners get to the desired temperature and then continue to get hotter and hotter whilst you are using them, therefore completely frying your hair. GHD also heats up in under 30 seconds which is an added bonus! I would definitely recommend the gold series with GHD as opposed to the platinum series, just purely because the gold series is incredibly reliable and I haven't known a pair to break. In my experience SO many of my clients who have purchased the Platinum series have returned them as they have broken within a few months so I’m not that keen on the platinum series! The gold series is just as good and contains all the same important technology as the Platinum series. Straighteners are incredibly versatile as well as you can create volume looks, curls and even a crimped wavy look, you really don't need to spend any money purchasing a crimper or waver as this can easily be achieved with a pair of straighteners.

Babyliss Big Hair 50mm

This tool is one of my new absolute favourites. It creates the big bouncy blow dry look. It’s SO easy to use, (although can give you arm ache after a while if you're not a hairdresser and not used to blow drying). All you have to do is shampoo and condition your hair, rough dry your hair off to around 50% dryness and then section your hair and use this tool. I love Babyliss as a brand, their tools are always really high quality, really reliable and always such good value for money. This tool does take a very small amount of practise to get used to it but the results are so worth it! I would recommend using this tool with a volumising product such as mousse or a volume lotion. So how does this tool work? It basically puts a large round brush and hairdryer into one. It blows out warm air whilst having a rotating round brush that you control with a button, the round brush rotates both clockwise and anti clockwise. This tool creates a beautiful amount of volume and has made the bouncy blow dry achievable to do yourself at home. This product is amazing but unfortunately I would not recommend it for long hair (anything around 3 inches below shoulder length). This is because longer hair will easily get tangled within the rotating brush and you won't be able to achieve the desired blow dried look, to achieve this look in longer hair you can use the tongs mentioned below.

Babyliss Pro Tongs 32mm

If you know how to use them, tongs are the only curling product you need in your at home hair tool kit. They are SO versatile and you can create nearly any curled look with these. From bouncy big curls, to beachy waves, to loose curls, to ringlets (if that's what you fancy). It's just the different techniques of using the tongs that you need to learn in order to be able to use them for several different looks. I find 32mm is the perfect sized barrel as it's not too small that it'll create ringlets that are too tight and it's not too big that your curls will be too loose and fall out within 5 minutes of leaving the house. This size barrel is also perfect for basically every length of hair. They're great as well because they have a dial that controls the temperature, therefore you can make the tongs hotter if your hair can't hold curls very well, or you can make them cooler if you just want a more relaxed loose curl look. The Pro series with babyliss are definitely worth that little bit more money. If you know which technique to use you can achieve any curl look, I will be doing another blog post soon about different curling techniques with this pair of tongs.

With all 3 of these tools in your tool kit at home you can create nearly any style. It's just the techniques you use for each of them! You don't need to have a separate tool for every different style. I hope this has helped some of you decide on which hair tools to have, I have linked all the tools if you wanted to purchase any of them, just click on the name of the tool. Thank you again so much for reading and I’ll see you again next month!

Lara x