The Difference Between Flow and a Hair Straightener

Though some women are lucky enough to have hair that can be perfectly styled in a matter of minutes, the majority of us need a bit more effort put into our styles to get the look we want. This is especially true for the ladies with wavy or frizzy hair. Taming those locks is a must and you need the right tool to do it. Hair straighteners have been the common choice for decades, but many women are leaving them behind for a ceramic straightening brush. So, what is the difference between these two styling tools? Let’s find out.

Styling Time

If it takes an hour to do your hair, you probably won’t want to do it at all. This is the first flaw with the flat irons. First, they take a long time to heat up, so if you’re in a rush, forget straightening your hair. Flat irons also have thin plates, which means it takes longer to straighten an entire head of hair. You also need to section if off before you even start since a flat iron can’t handle big chunks at once. Be prepared to have some clips and combs handy.

Straightening brushes have the advantage here since they heat up very quickly and take a maximum of about 15 minutes to straighten even long hair. In fact, for many women, they have their hair straightened in less than 5 minutes, giving them more time for styling, makeup or even relaxing with a magazine before heading off to work or a night out. Another benefit of Flow is that you don’t have to waste time sectioning your hair or fussing with clips. Just brush it out slowly and you’re done.

Volume

A flat iron does exactly what its name suggests, it flattens your hair. This means that you won’t be seeing any volume when you’re done. A straightening brush has the opposite effect. As you run it through your hair, it takes out the wave or frizziness, but it doesn’t destroy the volume. It actually gives you hair a natural boost of volume, so you don’t have to load up on hair products.

Daily Use

Another downside of the flat iron is that they are so hot, they can actually damage your hair if you use them every day. If you ignore the warnings, you’ll be dealing with dull, brittle hair full of split ends. Worse still, if your hair is already fragile, weak or damaged, a flat iron will completely destroy it, requiring a lot of TLC to bring it back to its former healthy glory.

Because a ceramic straightening brush doesn’t get as hot and you don’t need to clamp it down on every bit of your hair, it doesn’t cause the damage a flat iron will. This makes it safer for your hair, so you can brush it through every day and never see a broken strand. Even if your hair is already suffering from a bit of damage, the straightening brush won’t make it worse.

Safety

Since you’re using these tools with your hands and putting them right up close to your head, you need to be sure it won’t burn you in the process. A flat iron gets extremely hot, so if you touch the plates with your fingers, ears or scalp, you’re going to get a nasty burn. Not only is this dangerous, but it’s also painful.

Ceramic straightening brushes, like Flow, are designed to keep burns from happening. The plate doesn’t extend to the sides of the brush head, so it won’t touch you there. It doesn’t get as hot, plus many brushes use silicone tips that create a sort of barrier between your skin and the bristles. This means you won’t get burned even if you run it over your scalp as you brush the higher strands. You can even give your head a nice warm massage with those bristles if you like.

Hair Types

Hair straighteners have one feature that a straightening brush may lack. When it comes to thick, coarse hair or super tight curls, a flat iron can straighten them out. This could be because of the slower straightening process or the higher heat.

Though a ceramic straightening brush is perfect for wavy or frizzy hair, it has to work much harder on those thicker locks. This doesn’t mean you can’t use it for those harder to manage hair types, you just need to alter your routine. The sectioning hair process mentioned above, the one I said you could avoid with a straightening brush? This may be a necessity for thick, curly or coarse hair. You may also have to spend a few extra minutes doing your hair but you should still be able to get the job done faster than with a flat iron.