Choosing a Ceramic Flat Iron

When my first flat iron quit working after only one year of use, I decided that I would definitely look into buying something of better quality the next go ’round.  Little did I know that it would be 7 months before I would finally purchase a new one.  Instead of running out and replacing it right away, I decided to take my time and do some research.  One of the first things I did was start looking into styling options that didn’t require the use of heat.  This started me on my Natural Hair journey which meant that the flat iron of my dreams would have to be able to straighten my natural hair texture, kinks and all.

I looked at Consumer Reports on the subject and found tons of info on the different types of flat irons.  There are a lot of heat styling tools that are ceramic now but the real question is, how ceramic are they?  It turns out that my previous joke of a flat iron was only ceramic coated which would explain the $40 USD price tag.  The material started peeling and would catch my hair.  This exposed the metal plates underneath and caused lots of breakage.  However, professional tools that used full ceramic plates were priced way more than I could afford and were very fragile.  One drop and crack goes the flat iron.  I later read that the mid-range variety ($80-$150) used plates that have multiple layers of ceramic coating and sometimes even added tourmaline. 

 It is the tourmaline that helps the iron produce more negative ions.  No, this is not chemistry class folks, we’re talkin’ hair here!  Apparently the more negative ions the better the heat.  Of course, using direct heat on the hair is never considered a good thing but I found out that there are different types of heat.  This information explained how some flat irons give excellent results and also cause less damage while others burn the hair to a crisp.