My Hair Routine Part 5: Styling Tools

My Hair Routine Series
Part 1: Cleansing
Part 2: Conditioning
Part 3: Styling
Part 4: Honorable Mention Products
Part 5: Styling Tools


Oh my goodness! We've finally made it to the last post in this series, styling tools.  Sometimes I think that how you apply products and what you use to style your hair affects the way your hair looks just as much if not more than what you're using.

Combs
I've never been one that thought I needed a bunch of different brushes and combs.  So I don't have a bunch! I've only got two.

First up is the beloved Denman brush. Denman calls themselves the makers of "The Hairdresser's Hairbrush."  I think of this as a step up from those paddle brushes that we all have had at one point or another. You know, the kind with the little plastic balls on the ends of the spokes? This brush does not have those little balls on the end.  Instead, the spoke comes to a gentle point, which gives you a really wonderful scalp massage when you use this brush.  Denman brushes are great for distributing product in a way that helps clump curls together.  I use this daily on wet hair when I'm applying products.

When I blow dry my hair, I use this round brush.  It is amazing! I have tried many other roundbrushes, but none work for me like this one.  I'm not "good" at hair styling or even at blowdrying my hair so that it comes out looking good.  This brush does the work for me thank goodness.  I've had this brush for years. It's super durable.  The barrel heats up so that it gives you some help with getting your hair straight.  I find that I can often skip the flat iron when I use this brush, whereas if I use my denman or just my fingers, I get a poof ball.

Hair Dryer
My beloved, ancient Revlon Who Knows What dryer died on me a few days ago.  It was really sort of tragic.  I had that thing for at least 5 years.  All I really know about it was 1) it was red, 2) it had 3 speed settings and two heat settings, and 3) they don't make it anymore.  I looked everywhere for an exact replacement.

So, I turned to my favorite place in the world, Marshall's.  They had some CHI hair dryers, but I wasn't really ready to commit $80 to a new dryer.  So it was off to my other favorite place in the world, TJMaxx.  And they had a Babyblis hair dryer for $40.  I had heard of the brand before but hadn't tried anything from them.  So I figured, eh, what the heck, it's half the price of the other ones.

Here's my actual model.  Wow! This thing is amazing.  The airflow is super duper powerful.  I sometimes skip the concentrator attachment because of how powerful the airflow is.  The air gets super hot at the hot setting and also refreshingly cold on the cold setting.  This has cut my drying time by several minutes.  My Revlon dryer would take about 10 minutes to get to completely dry from towel dried.  This thing takes around 5-6 minutes.  Really wonderful product, and I have no qualms recommending it even though I've only had it a few days.  I will let you guys know if it ends up breaking quickly or something like that, but it feels very quality/solid.

Microfiber Cloths
I use a microfiber cloth every.single.day. Why? If I use my terrycloth towel on my hair, it's frizz city.  Whether I'm going curly or straight, the only way that I will take water out of my hair is with a microfiber cloth.  If I'm in a pinch an find myself without one, I use my softest cotton t-shirt.  But I'd rather use a dedicated hair cloth because that way I can actually wear my softest t-shirt, rather than throwing it into the wash!

Curls Like Us cloths are my go-tos.  I love everything about this product.  I have them in every color.  They work exactly like they are supposed to.  They are cylinder in shape, and you put your hands through like a winter hand warmer.  Then just scrunch the water out of your hair.  They are washable (just skip the dryer sheet/fabric softener to help them keep their absorbency).  And they look super cute in your bathroom!

Curling Iron

When I feel like I need to look extra special for a date night or for some formal evening event, I turn to the curling iron.  I can't do up dos.  I just can't.  My scalp wasn't made to endure the number of bobby pins that it takes to hold my hair in place.  Also, I'm not flexible enough to be able to reach around like it seems that these girls on youtube can. "This is the easiest up do ever!" they say...yeah until I look like a pretzel from trying to reach around.  Is it just me or do these girls have an extra arm? I think they just edit it out of the videos.

Rant aside, when I do my hair for an event, I curl it and leave it down.  I use the Hot Tools 1 inch curling iron.  Nothing too fancy about it.  It's like $10 more than what you could pick up from the drugstore, but Amazon has it for a really good price, and check out the reviews on it. That many people can't be wrong!  This thing is amazing.  The heat distribution is always perfectly even all along the barrel, and I find that the temperature controls are very sensitive.  It's very simply with this iron to switch from "I need these to stay perfect for 8 hours" curls to "I want to look beachy and care free" curls.

Flat Iron

I know, what an odd thing to have on dormroomcurly.  But in the interests of telling you all what I actually use, I have to say that I do occasionally like to run a flat iron through my hair. Bad bad bad.  But, in case you like to as well and are in the market, I use the GVP flat iron from Sally's Beauty.  I find that it has wonderful heat range, it never heats up unevenly, and the ceramic finish has lasted me for two years now, and doesn't show any signs of slowing down. Of course, that's with pretty light use, so take that with a grain of salt I suppose.

So that's what I use when I style my hair.  Some of those get used everyday (the denman, the towels), and some are used only infrequently, but I highly recommend all of them.

Today's Tidbits
1) I had a box of Kraft mac and cheese tonight.  Classic kids meal.  Foods like that can really take you down memory lane!
2) I'm LOVING these new Nivea lip butters.  I have the vanilla scented one and the unscented one.  They are really saving my lips in this dry, cold, windy weather right now.  Honestly, I might do a whole post about these things. They are petrolatum based, so you might think, eh, I'll just use Vaseline instead. But I don't know what the other ingredients do to the petrolatum, but something makes it soak in.  These make your lips feel moisturized for several hours as opposed to a few minutes with most other lip balm products.


My Hair Routine Series
Part 1: Cleansing
Part 2: Conditioning
Part 3: Styling
Part 4: Honorable Mention Products
Part 5: Styling Tools