My Magic Wand

Gone are the days when I could make a single wet set last 5 days.

When I started running I could still sort of stretch it out, but these days of wearing a helmet for Roller Derby 2 or 3 times a week, well, it’s just not cutting it I’m afraid and I have to reserve such luxuries for holidays. With that in mind I always have an eye open for quick and easy ways to do something a bit more interesting with my resolutely straight hair that will see me through an evening out.

Last Summer a stylist at Jarrolds used a curling wand to create this gorgeous look on my hair (which was admittedly slightly longer then), so when Babyliss asked me if I wanted to try out something from their Diamond Range I thought I would give the Diamond Waves Wand a try. It costs £30, so isn’t bank breaking, but it does look enough like high-end sex toy to make me snigger slightly because I am juvenile.

curling wand

I have never used a curling wand before, and I had an idea I was going to use it to create finger waves. In reality I think to get finger waves you would need a *much* smaller barreled curling wand.

These kind of wands are really designed for use on longer hair than mine. Even with the help of the handy heat protective glove I found it difficult to get a proper curl on any of the bottom layers of my hair without singing various parts of my head and hands, but the top layers were easy as pie.

I separated them into sections of an inch or under, spritzed them with a light hold hair spray and then curled them towards my face. One thing I did like about this wand was the wiggly bits that make it look so amusing (to me) really nicely guided your hair around the wand and stopped them getting all tangled up. Having spent large amounts of time attempting to free hot sticks that have inexplicably knotted themselves into my hair I appreciated this feature a lot!

diamond wand

Ok, so part way through, having curled the top section properly, and some bits of the underneath that I could manage without burny pain you might be thinking “hmmm, is this the look we are going for?”

curled

We all know, though, that the truth is never revealed until we get to the brush out, right?

After waiting for it to cool and then quite a lot of brushing out I was pretty pleased with the result. I think I need a lot more practice and patience before I can come up with beautiful waves like the Jarrolds stylist. The final result I came out with, even on short hair, was more tousled waves than an immaculate vintage “do”.

If you’re used to the very curled under style you will get with rollers then it takes a bit of getting used to. You can’t curl all the way to the end of your hair with a wand as you’ll burn your fingers. It was, however, pretty quick to do, especially as I only really curled the top and just very half heartedly did the bottom layers so they weren’t dead straight.

(Please note, over my shoulder in the bottom picture that is a wooden skeleton wearing a Comic Relief red nose. This is the sort of thing I have in my house and we’ll all just have to deal with it)

waves

My other worry about styles using heated appliances is always that the minute I walk out the front door into the real world of humidity, wind and other un-hair-friendly things it will immediately drop flat. This is not a concern I have without reason as I desperately wanted curls as a teenager and me and my curling tongs would spend pointless hours together as my hair was always straight within minutes of leaving the house.

The upside of bleaching my hair, however, is that it’s now much more receptive to heated styling, so with the help of the hairspray this lasted pretty well, through last nights Norwich Fashion Week Designers show (see my FROW selfie for evidence) and this morning it even still has a bit of a wave to it that just needs tousling up for a bit of a Meg Ryan effect.

When I first tried straighteners I was surprised by how quickly they pretty much became a hair dressing essential for me, the Babyliss Diamond Waves Wand, is less likely to become an everyday essential, but is a very useful addition to my last-minute hair styling arsenal, and at only £30 I think it’s a bit of a bargain.

My verdict? A curling wand is definitely worth a try if you want waves in a hurry!