If you're not the kinky sort (Remington Wet2Straight Wide Nano Gold Wide Straightener)

Member Name: THE_CHEMIST

Product:	Remington Wet2Straight Wide Nano Gold Wide Straightener
Date:	30/11/05 (1204 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Quick and easy to use

Disadvantages: No major problems

After 11 years of wedded bliss, I finally gave up.
My wife had been dropping not-so-subtle hints about getting a set of hair straighteners for quite some time, but I had been steadfastly resisting, knowing that they would just end up on the pile of oestrogen-fuelled impulse buys. This includes such 'essential equipment' as: the exercise bike (a very useful clothes horse), the smoothie maker (too much trouble to clean), and the Lateral Thigh Trainer (too much like hard work).
Then, finally and probably under great duress, I gave in and agreed to buy a set for her.

The following 30 minutes went by in a blur of frenzied activity. I don't remember getting dressed, but when my head stopped spinning and my eyes finally started to focus, there I was, fully clothed, standing in Boots in front of a huge array of contraptions that wouldn't have look out of place in the Marquis de Sade's boudoir.

Naturally, at the very thought of actually getting a set of hair straighteners (her goal for months), my wife had now wandered off and was looking at electric toothbrushes, leaving me to select from the bewildering range of (adult?) toys in front of me.

This is a normal trick for my wife, called the blame game. She will often leave me to choose things relating solely to her, not out of any sense of trust, but so that she can blame me if it doesn't work out right in the end.
Of course, if it does work out okay, standard spousal rules in the blame game dictate that she is allowed to insist that she told me what to buy, but that I have forgotten that she told me, and must have been working on some sub-conscious subliminal memory.

But, the truth is that we really ended up with the Remington S8200 Wet2Straight wide plate straighteners because I used my trusted principles of Price, Look and Name.
1. PRICE
Too cheap, like some of the plasticky tat they try to sell to young girls, and it's liable to break in a week. Too expensive, and you'll never use it enough to get value for money from it, regardless of what Nicky Clarke et al. says on the packaging.
At nearly £100, when I bought them, they certainly weren't cheap, and even seemed on the high side of reasonable, but I was swayed by the extra 1500 points (or £15 voucher for Boots) on offer at the time for this model.
2. LOOK
If the packaging looks too clinical, highlighting in great detail exactly what the contents of the box are supposed to do, you know that you're going to need a PhD to understand the instructions. On the flipside, too bright and flashy, with lots of colours and kittens perhaps, and you can bet that the contents are not up to much. Otherwise, why spend SO much money on the advertising and aisle-appeal.
The Wet2Straight packaging is basically a black box, with minimal writing, beside the name of the contents and a basic description of what they do. The packaging looks sophisticated and well designed, suggesting that the product inside would be as well.
3. NAME
The name, or brand, of any object can either sell it or stall it. I have tried many different brands of many different things over the years, and have formed a few opinions of my own about reliability, customer service etc.
Remington is one of my more trusted brands, and are specialists in the field of human grooming; my first electric shaver was a Remington, and lasted me for fifteen years before being sadly laid to rest after a fight with a concrete floor. So I had no problem favouring them over gimmick brands like Nicky Clarke or the non-familiar brands like Babyliss.

It was when we got home that my wife dropped a couple of bombshells on me.

First, she informed (not asked) me, that I would be the one using the straighteners because I was 'better at that sort of thing'.
How she managed to come to that conclusion about a bloke whose hair was thinning so quickly it would put WeightWatchers to shame and whose idea of personal grooming was to look in the mirror merely to find out how unkempt he was looking, I will never know. I suspect that it is a new part of the blame game.

Secondly, and more importantly, she told me that she was washing her hair later, and that she wanted it straightening afterwards. This was immediately followed by the dropping of the box into my lap, meaning that I should open it and find out what was to be expected of me.

Oh well, no rest for the wicked.

Having torn, bitten, cut, sliced and battered my way through enough cellotape to slope a herd of hamsters from exploding (VERY RUDE JOKE), I finally managed to get the box open. Inside, I found:

1 set of hair straighteners
1 pouch
1 bundle of papers

The Straighteners.
These are about 11 inches long and constructed from a matt black ABS type plastic. This is not like the cheap shiny rubbish of some of the other brands. Instead it gives the straighteners a sturdy and reliable feel in the hand. Also of note is the fact that the plastic itself is 'burnished'. What I mean by this is that it has a textured, non-slip feel, which is essential for the safe working of this machine as I will explain later in the review.

At the hinged end of this tong-like contraption, the cable snakes off to find its plug some three metres away. From experience, this is a perfect length for these hair straighteners; long enough to allow the user freedom, but not long enough to create a serious trip hazard.

Working away from the hinge, I found a set of controls about a third of the way along one of the blades. Now, it is impossible to say, with any authority, whether this is the top or bottom blade as there is no clear orientation of the machine itself, but if you look on the inside face of the tongs, you can't really miss the switch and the dial.
The switch is the ON/OFF switch for the device. This is pretty self explanatory, so I won't insult my dear readers by going into great detail about it.
The dial, situated right next to the switch is for temperature control. This model has a variable temperature, which is mainly need for the difference between wet and dry straightening (more, later in review), and is controlled by this dial.
By some freak chance, according to the markings, you are able to vary the temperature between MIN and MAX (fancy that!). It doesn't really matter what the actual temperatures are as there is no hard and fast rule as to what setting will work best for the individual, but a process of trial and error will soon establish where on the dial is applicable for you.

The one major fault that I have found with these straighteners is that these controls are a little on the small and fiddly side for my ham-fisted, stubby fingers. Of course, hair straighteners, without wishing to appear sexist, are mainly going to be used by members of the fairer sex, who tend not to have stumpy fat hands like mine, so this criticism may be a little unfair in reality.

The last four inches of the blades are taken up by the hot plates. On the wide bladed version, these plates are about 2 inches wide, whereas the narrower version, and most other straighteners, are only about half that.
The difference, I was advised by the assistant in Boots, is that the wider plates are better for longer hair with waves, whilst the narrower blades are more suited to shorter hair with tighter curls.

Apparently, the plates are ceramic with a Teflon coating, allowing for easier styling.
As a bloke, this means absolutely NOTHING to me. Ceramic sounds like the type of brakes that really expensive sports cars have, whereas Teflon has something to do with posh frying pans.
So, it must be good, eh ?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!!

That's about all I can say about the machine, so I'll move on to :

The Pouch.
The supplied pouch is quite a bit larger than the straighteners themselves. This is probably because it is lined with heat resistant material, allowing you to put the straighteners away almost immediately after use. If it were too snug a fit to the device itself, there would be no room for the heat to dissipate, thus causing a fire hazard.
The extra size also allows the cable to come out of the top, even with the flap shut, so that it can be stored in the pocket at the rear.

There isn't really much I can say about the pouch, except that it is black and a little bit 'shiny', so I'll move on to :

The Paperwork.
When I had opened the box, I had found a rather large bundle of papers which, I had assumed to be the instruction book. In fact, they were just about anything BUT instructive, ranging from warrantee card to fill in (completely unnecessary) to adverts for other Remington products (annoying) to questionnaires about my shopping habits (totally obtuse).

The instructions were actually hidden amongst this lot, but, as informative 'How to' documents, they were completely useless. Vagueness seemed to be the order of the day when reading them, with instructions of the type :-
"It should take a few seconds to move the straighteners along the hair from root to tip."
How many seconds? Does it take longer for longer hair? Does it matter how straight or curly the hair is to start with?

Pondering these questions made me realise how impossible a job it is to write proper instructions for almost any hair appliance. After all, everybody's hair has slightly different characteristics, and as such, will need treating in a different way.

This, in turn, made me come to the conclusion that the only thing to do was :

The Practical.

Before I go too far into this section, I must explain that my wife's hair is slightly greasy, long, dark and thick with a medium wave (or so the assistant in Boots told me). All the setting and procedures that I mention in this section are based purely on these facts. Anyone using this, or any other, set of straighteners will have to adapt the setting to suit their own hair.

Okay !

The first time I tried straightening my wife's hair, was directly after she had washed it. This means that it was very wet.
The first thing that I noticed was the amount of steam that was given off by this contraption when the wet hair is clamped between the two hot plates. Fortunately, the non-slip patina on the tong handles helped to prevent my hands from losing grip, even after they had become quite wet from the steam.

Like I said previously, the use of this appliance was always going to be a matter of trail and error, and I had made the error of starting off on the maximum heat setting. Although this was having the desired effect, straightening-wise, it soon became apparent that I was not going to be able to carry on without turning down the temperature due to the steam scalding my hands. After a while, and a bit of fiddling, I managed to reach the best compromise of straightening effect against steam production at about one third of the maximum heat setting.

Straightening, itself, was pretty much a case of getting a rhythm going. I found that by 'picking up' a wodge of hair, about 2 inches across and 1 inch deep, with a brush and following a normal brushing motion with the straighteners, it took about three passes to straighten each wodge.
I also found that if I followed the brush with the straighteners for the first two passes, and then followed the straighteners with the brush for the final pass, I was able to keep a good tension in the hair which made for much better straightening.

On this first occasion, it took about 40 minutes to get my wife's hair to a satisfactory (to her) standard of straightness. I've now managed to trim that time down to about half through practise.

On subsequent occasions, I have attempted to straighten my wife's hair whilst dry and semi-dry. The procedure has remained very much the same, except that I only need to do 2 passes, because I can turn the heat up to nearer the maximum.

Conclusions and Opinions

Having had these straighteners for about six months, and having used them about once every ten days on average, I would say that I am becoming pretty well versed in every aspect of them. This said, I have noticed only one fly in the 'hair straightening' ointment.
It's a question of grease.
Every time the straighteners are used, they pick up tiny amounts of grease from the hair on the hot plates. If this is not wiped off, when it comes to the next time, it can make using them much more difficult.
Wiping them is not the issue. All they need is a damp cloth (we have found wet, antiseptic face wipes to be ideal). The problem is that you can not wipe them when they are hot without risking a fire or third degree burns, and after they have cooled, you will tend to forget.
This is only a small problem, and is not directly aimed at the straighteners themselves, but it is important for anyone thinking of buying any of these contraptions to remember.

As for the machine itself.
I can find no real negatives. It is well-made from sturdy and resilient materials. The heating element is both powerful, going from 0 to MAX in under a minute, and variable. The design, although nothing special, is comfortable in the hand and does not encumber the user with too much weight.
The only slight niggle for me is the controls. But as I have stated, I am very ham-fisted, and do not think that the controls will prove a problem for more dextrous fingers.

All in all, these are excellent hair straighteners.

Would I recommend them?
Yes

P.S. For any of you out there who might be wondering; Yes, she did get an electric toothbrush as well.

We share responsibility for the bills in our house.

She's responsible for making them. I'm responsible for paying them.

Summary: Easy and convenient, even for novices