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Nicky Clarke NTS049 Hair Therapy Hair Curling Tong
by sparkle1004
My hair is frizzy and so I am always straightening it but sometimes on a night out, I will wear it in loose curls as it is really quite long. I have owned many 'curling devices' over the years but my absolute favourite is the Hair Therapy Curling Tong by Nicky Clark.
Hair Therapy
The aim of the Hair Therapy range is to ... help you to style your hair the way that you want to while keeping it healthy. This product actually protects the hair from heat damage as you use it and also locks moisture into the hair to stop it from drying out. The barrel is coated in ceramic to give your hair a lovely shine.
About the product
The product has is 19mm wide along the barrel and it has a top temperature of 220 degrees. If this temperature is too hot for your hair then you can choose from seven others which would best suit you. It has a two metres long cord so it will reach the socket by my mirror and gives me room to work with the product which getting myself into strange posistions. It has a little stand which allows you to put the curling tong on the carpet without burning the surface and it will also switch itself off after 60 minutes just incase you've forgotten to do it yourself so you'll never have to panic about whether you've left it on.
Appearance
The product looks like the average curling tong. It has a black body with a bronze/gold digital display on the front. There are three different buttons. One to turn the temperature up, one to turn the temperature down and an on/off button. Nicky Clarke is written in fancy writing underneath. The actual barrel is silver ceramic and it has a crocodile mouth which can be opened by pushing the black trigger. It looks classy and of good quality.
Price
The price will vary greatly but I got mine from Argos for £20.99. It will also be available from a variety of electrical shops and also from online websites.
Application and Performance
These curling tongs heat up really fast. The box suggests that it takes 15 seconds and I would say that this was about right. A flashing light indicates when the product is ready to use and has reached your chosen temperature. The barrel does get really hot and even the lower temperatures are hot so you have to be really careful not to touch the ceramic part. The product is light so your arm won't get too tired after holding it for long periods of time. It easy to wrap your hair around the barrel and the crocodile mouth holds it securely.
You don't need to leave your hair wrapped around the barrel for long and it release easily, falling off the tong into a beautiful curl. You can tell that this is a good quality product because of the condition of the hair. The curls don't feel dry at all. They are bouncy, hydrated and they even have a lovely shine to them. Once I have finished, I usually spritz my hair with hairspray to hold the curls in place. They will generally stay in all night although by the time I get home, they will have dropped quite a bit. I think this will depend on your hair type though.
Conclusion
All in all, I think these curling tongs are fantastic. It make beautiful long lasting curls which shine and bounce with health. The product is easy to use and you can make it suit your needs by changing the temperature. I can't see myself ever changing from this product and it comes at a reasonable price too!
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Nicky Clarke NHS005 Compact Rollers
by SoadFan
~Nicky Clarke heated roller set~
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I bought a set of these Nicky Clarke heated rollers when looking through the hair care section of a well known store, as the set was on sale at a highly reduced sale price. Whilst I am a major fan of hair straighteners I felt that this heated hair roller set ... might be a good option for those moments when I wanted a different look in a short time span. I must admit that the low sale price and attractive product presentation was what made me think these rollers were worth a try as an alternative to straightening my hair, as up until I saw the set in store I hadn't even contemplated buying anything like this set.
~Product presentation~
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The packing and presentation of this set is quite nice in my opinion and it most certainly drew my attention as I purchased the set there and then. I feel that the outer packing is quite smart and sleek in its use of colour and presentation, which is perhaps why I bought these heated rollers without having examined them at all, (which is out of character as I would usually have a look at the contents of the box prior to purchase). Once I had unpacked the roller set I was greeted with a very neat little black fabric container that had a small but useful carry handle and a simple zip opening. I felt the storage case looked both cute and portable.
~Storage/ heat up/ ease of use~
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The inside of the storage bag holds enough heated rollers for use with short to medium length hair in my opinion, as the number of rollers you get is quite small. I found the rollers to be slim, fairly compact in size, with a nice neat slightly spiked and textured finish (to grip the hair with) that I feel made them easy to handle and work with as long as they were set tightly in place in the hair. The heat up time for a half set of rollers was slower than I hoped it would be, with it taking a good few minutes before they were ready to work with. I am used to styling my hair with fast heating straighteners, so I had to make sure I plugged the heated base unit in around 8 to 12 minutes before I wanted to use the rollers.
As you get a very compact heating base that sits at the bottom of the fabric style bag you can only heat half the rollers provided at any one time which I felt was a little irksome. I found that when using this set I had to set a heated roller in place and then replace it with an unheated roller, which then had to sit and heat up for a number of minutes prior to use. This was a little awkward at first although I soon got into a routine of using a hot roller, adding an unheated one to the base and repeating the process until I had used up all the preheated rollers and was left with the second set of rollers which would then be almost ready to use if wanted.
~What is in the set?~
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The set is very compact and portable in my opinion. Inside the small storage bag you only get a total of 12 thermoplastic rollers with enough pins to set them in place, which I feel is not really enough to use with longer hair. The rollers are ether coloured in black or red, which I fell is eye catching and they look to be of a nice quality and finish, although they are very light to handle. The power cable and plug pokes out through the edge of the storage bag, which means you don't need to take the heated base out of the bag in order to use it. The storage bag zips open and closed neatly and works well enough in my opinion.
~Results~
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The rollers and heating set are meant to provide so called ionic heating technology which is there to cut out the risk of frizzy hair after using the rollers, although in my opinion this aspect of these heated rollers is not as successful as it might be, as I could still detect a degree of frizz at times when using the rollers. The only way to try to get over the frizzy effect when it occurred seemed to be using a little frizz ease serum prior to using the rollers on my hair, which did seem to work better than when not using the serum at all. The pins provided with the set (which are used to hold each roller in place) seemed well shaped and fitted the rollers well enough, although I had to fit the rollers and pins quite tightly in order to keep everything in place which wasn't always very comfortable.
The curls produced by these rollers were not overly full and the effect was more of a soft wave than a full on curly whirly look, which I feel is more flattering and in keeping with modern hair styles as they often only require a little more body and bounce rather than a full head of curls. After having used these heated rollers I feel that they can some times produce good results although they are time consuming to use. This is an attractive looking heated roller set that produces average results on longer hair in my opinion. I feel that the price, packing and presentation of this hair care set is good in many ways, yet doesn't fully live up to expectations once in use. The results I had when using the set were at best average.
~Product rating/ price~
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I feel that these heated rollers would make an attractive and some what useful gift for a woman with short to medium short hair who wants to add a little body and volume to a shorter hair style. For those with longer hair this set wouldn't really be a great idea, as a greater number of heated rollers of a variety of sizes might be needed to give the best results. The set would suffice as a travel set as it is small and compact and wouldn't take up too much room in a case or bag. The cost of these heated rollers is very reasonable at between £16 to £20 per set, which I feel is very competitive for a basic heated roller set.
Had the set been quicker to use and given slightly better results I would have been happier with it. The heat up time is stated as being 10 minutes when using these and I feel that was about the length of time it took to heat up only half the rollers. I found that heating the remaining 6 rollers took further time and made using these a little more time consuming than I expected. In my opinion this set is only really suited for use with with shorter hair and is worthy of a 3 star product rating, which I feel reflects both good points (nice presentation, handy storage case, portable set) and bad points (takes too long to heat up, not enough heated rollers for longer hair, can cause frizzy hair).
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