30 favorites: a flat iron love story

As I've mentioned before, I have a little bit of an obsession with my hair.  From my apprehension to cutting off 10 inches for locks for love,  to actually taking the plunge and cutting it, to my shock and surprise when last month a little more than I wanted was chopped off, my hair is often a topic of my conversation.

Mostly I love it. It's thick, and dark, with lots of volume, and natural wavy/curly.  Sometimes I feel like I live in the best of both worlds--I can throw some product in and let my hair be as curly as it wishes, or straighten it with my beloved flat iron for a sleek straight look.

But then sometimes I feel like my hair hates me.  I always have to do SOMETHING with it.  And while I've been able to hone my skills over the past 31 years and figure out exactly how to get my hair to do what I want in the shortest amount of time possible, it's still frustrating at times.

My friend Lauren has the most beautiful hair. It's also thick, and dark, with lots of volume, but Lauren can literally wash and go.  She can step out of the shower, run a brush through her hair, and let it dry by itself and it looks awesome.  She can also go to bed with it wet, wake up the next day, and with minimal styling/poking/prodding, have gorgeous hair.  It's so unfair.  Lauren will disagree with me, but seriously, just ask her wife Rene, we constantly fuss at her over how she should appreciate and love her hair more.  She is so lucky.  I have major hair envy.

If I wash and go, it's not a pretty sight.  And I could never go to bed with wet hair and wake up to anything other than a hot damn mess on top my head.

And there's pretty much nothing worse than straightening my hair in the morning, just to get caught in the rain later in the day.  Truly, it's a major day ruiner.  My hair is like a mogwai...don't put any unwanted water on it, or I turn into a gremlin.

And I can't just "blow dry my hair straight."  Oh no no, my hair doesn't go for that.  In fact, it gets even MORE crazy after being taunted by the blow dryer.

Behold: "Nasrene after blowdryer"

Scary, right? 

Seriously, though, this is what I deal with.  It's why I can never cut my hair any shorter than it's current length.  It would curl and frizz up to the heavens until I looked like Little Orphan Annie.  Not that it really matters, because when it's long it still does the same thing...my hair has a burning desire to be just like Diana Ross when it fro's grows up.

Let the record show that there IS such a thing as a Persian-fro. 

To prove it, I give you...Exhibit A:

From L to R: my grandmom, mom, and dad, crica 1978.

Do you see it?  No?  Look a little closer...

Ohhhhh yeah, there it is...

Peel your eyes away from the old school aviators and the amazing porn-stache, and take a look at that mop atop my dad's head.  Do you see this people?  Do you understand the severity of my plight?  This could be me.  My genetic make-up says so.  I am just one bad haircut and one broken flat iron away from this fate.

So imagine my dismay when two weeks ago (just a couple weeks into having this new, shorter hair), my beloved flat iron passed away.

Just like that.

It wasn't "acting up"...there were no signs..just one day it worked, and the next day it didn't.

And this wasn't just ANY flat iron.  It's the flat iron that I've had for the past NINE years.  A flat iron that I purchased for a whopping $150 when I was a poor college student scraping my way through college.  Because I knew it would be worth it.  I knew it would make all of my dreams come true, because I had tried it at a friend's house and KNEW it was the flat iron for me.

This flat iron has been in my life longer than any relationship.  It's been with me through three different homes, has travelled all over the world with me, prepped me for countless events...

...and just like that it was gone.

A moment of silence..

FHI ionic ceramic flat iron, 2003-2012.

RIP.

Thus began the quest for the new flat iron.

I managed to corral my friend Sutton (who's relatively easy to corral when there's talk of retail therapy..) and off we went to Ulta, to consider my options.

First up, I tried the Pink Chrome Ultra Chi. 

I've often heard that the Chi is widely regarded as the Mercedes-Benz of flat irons.  Oftentimes when making conversation about how much I love my flat iron, friends would ask, "is it a Chi?"  Like, obviously if I loved it that much, it MUST be a Chi.   

This particular model met my requirements: it was ceramic, tourmaline (whatever they means)..and met Sadira's requirement: it was pink.

Extra bonus points for it's excellent warning labels...

Keep away from your kids:

And don't try to pluck your eyebrows with your flat iron. 

 

(Good to know.)

But unfortunately it quickly became apparent that the Chi did not live up to one single and very important expectation...it simply didn't get hot enough.

See, my hair is about as coarse as a mule's.  And its very important that any flat iron of mine get up to 450 degrees.  Not 390.  Not 410.  Not even 430. 

Four hundred fifty degrees.

And like a bad blind date, the Chi that EVERYONE had raved about, failed to impress.  It wasn't him, it was me.

The Chi was not for me.

RETURNED!

Bachelor number two was the the RUSK Heat Freak.  

 

Wow, you can tell this guy's a freak just from the packaging alone!   See how he spells "STR8 IRON?"  That's some freaky deaky sh*t right there!  If this flat iron was a real guy he'd be named Ryan, but spell it like this: Rian...cause he so cutting edge and freaky!  And at 1 and a HALF inches, his plates are bigger than most... not to mention he can make it hot..his "instant heat up" brags temps up to 450 degrees.

Whew, is it getting hot in here, or is it just those EXTRA LARGE plates of yours?

So I eagerly brought the Heat Freak home, excited to see what it could do for me...

 

The next day I got the following text message from my friend Sutton, "I forgot to ask, how was the flat iron?"

To which I responded,  "I like how hot it gets..and the thickness...but the jury's still out..I don't like how it feels in my hands though..but that's just me wanting my old one back, haha."

A few minutes later I re-read that statement and realized just how perverted that sounded...

..and quickly realized that I had my answer.

Heat Freak, you were fun for one night, but you're just not for me.  So I'll take that walk of shame back to Ulta so you can be bought by someone just a little more freaky than myself.

RETURNED!

I can't lie, I was feeling pretty dejected.  How would I ever find a flat iron to meet my expectations?  Where was the "The One?"  Will I ever find one that could do the job the way my previous one had?

I had almost given up hope...

..but they say you always find The One when you're not looking.  They come into your life when you least expect it.

So when this beauty virtually FELL IN MY LAP, I had to scoop it up.

I give you...the SEDU Revolution.

Breath-taking, isn't it?

From the moment I laid eyes on it, I knew it was something special.  Then I opened the case, and it almost took my breath away.  The "all black everything" chic decor practically screamed my name.  And before I ever even plugged the thing in, I knew it was destined that we would be together.

It was truly love at first sight.

Then I plugged it in, and was blown away.  Yes, it's also 1.5 inches, but it doesn't have to BRAG about it on it's box.  And 450 degrees?  Oh yeah, it can do that easily.  It's truly revolutionary. 

The best part?

In only three minutes of styling it can take me from this:

to this:

(Please excuse the non-make-up'd face)

And so only one week into our relationship, I can say that the SEDU Revolution has secured it's spot on my favorites list.  I'm in love.  And we're living together. I know it's only been a short period of time, but true love knows no bounds!

I'm looking forward to many happy years together.