The taming of the 'do (Babyliss Pro 200 Slim Ceramic Hair Straightener)

Member Name: thehonesttruth

Product:	Babyliss Pro 200 Slim Ceramic Hair Straightener
Date:	31/10/09 (94 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: -

Disadvantages: -

I'm part Chinese, and one of the side effects of this is extremely thick dark hair - everyone in my family on my mums side has this thick incredibly dark hair, which makes styling and colouring a pain in the bum.

With the trend having been for poker straight glossy hair for quite some time now, I decided it was time to pick up some straighteners . I didn't want to spend a fortune, since I knew I wasn't going to have time to use them everyday, so I opted for the Babyliss Pro 200 Slim Ceramic, which cost me £10 in Asda (reduced from 18.99).

It comes with instructions (very simple ones, in English) in the box, and also a 3 year manufacturers gaurantee. To use these is simple - place on a heatproof surface, turn on, and in 5 minutes it should be hot enough to use , working from root to tip of your hair to flatten it.

So, how easy was it to use in practice ?Well, I found the five minutes quite a long time to wait for them to heat up, although I've no idea if that is a standard wait. Also there is no variable heat setting, and the cord isn't very long . At the moment I'm on holiday and the plug point is nowhere near the mirror, so I'm having to style my hair at some distance from my reflection. The power cord swivels to, which can be a pain in the bum as when you rest the straighteners on a surface, if you've been storing therm with the cord curled around the cord moves around and gets in the way.

I find that with my hair being naturally thick and rather full of kinks, it took a fair few sweeps with the straigteners to get it straight, although I never did quite achieve the glossy poker straight look I get from a trip to the hairdressers. My wild hair did look a lot straighter and tidier though, but the effect was a lot of hard work to achieve.

There are some good points with these that I feel are worthy of a mention - I like the fact that the plates stop a cm or so short of the end of the appliance, and that the heating end is covered in some kind of black material - this keeps it cool to the touch and minimises the chance of me burning myself.

They are slim, much narrower than many other similar products. Now, this means of course that less hair at once is getting straightened , but it also means they take up less space in your suitcase. In fact, the straighteners are compact enough for me to slip them into my handbag should I need to .


The ceramic plates made it fairly smooth to straighten my hair, although I did get the occasional pulled strand.

Considering I only paid £10 for these, I can't really complain . Their top heat is 200, so it is a fairly slow and laborious process to get my hair straight and under control, and I don't think this product is going to achieve that salon look on my particular brand of mad hair - but they do tame the madness, and my hair does look better for it

If you're looking for something quick to use before work, you'll probably want something with bigger plates and a higher temperature than this - but for the occasional smarten up for me, these are time consuming, but effective .

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