Curling wand VS iron | compare and contrast

💁 Curling Wand vs Iron

I titled this post Wand vs Iron, but I wanted to tell you about my experiences with comparing the curling wand, iron, and the straightener.  There are a lot of tutorials and videos out there to get those perfect beach waves but not much on comparing the methods or explaining the technique of each method.  So here I have embedded videos and pics of different methods and the technique to create a certain type of wave/curl.

First let me tell you I have thin, pin straight hair when dry.  No color/processing damage.  So you can imagine it’s hard to curl my hair and also to maintain the curl.  Keep in mind there are many different hair types, textures, and thickness, so different hair will react with each method differently.  Below is only my experiences with straight, thin hair.  

Methods:

Straightening Iron

When I first starting “waving” my hair I used a hair straightener.  I will show the technique below in a YouTube video that I thought was very helpful in getting it down.  But this is before i was pregnant and had thicker hair.  (Each strand was more thick and I had a lot more of it.) After pregnancy I lost a lot of hair and it still is growing back in, I have a lot of baby hairs that are still half the length as the rest of my hair even after 18 months post pregnancy.  This method gave me more of curly hair not a beachy wave with soft ends.  The end of the curl would be more curlier than I wanted it to be.  Plus pulling the hair tought and pulling the straightener through the hair caused a lot more damage.  I saw more split ends and hair breakage with this method.  Because my hair was harder to curl, I had to pull the straightener down thru my hair at a diagonal instead of horizontal as shown in this photo.

this video from The Small Things Blog really helped me get the technique down

http://youtu.be/47V-awu_vvY

Curling Iron

After my pregnancy I’ve have a lot less hair to work with plus my hair has also gotten thin.  Plus i didn’t like the curlier ends when using a straightening iron, so I tried using a curling iron.  Its the same technique as using a straightener except there is a clamp that you can hold your hair with flap up agains the iron while pulling your hair thru.  This way, you have more control and hold of your sections of hair.  But as i continued using this method, I discovered it was when the hair is flat up against the iron as it is being curled is what creates more of a shirley temple curley q curl.  and I was looking more for a loose, relaxed wave.

I really thought this video by MakeupByAlli was really helpful when I was first trying this method.

http://youtu.be/yTo9sNjGfRU

Curling Wand

So this is when i finally decided to move on to the the curling wand. To get the waves, I found that its better to wrap your hair around the wand and stopping an inch before your ends instead of curling from the ends of your hair curling up towards your scalp.  This way you get more volume and it looks more fuller at the scalp than at the ends of your hair.   As you wrap your hair around the wand, you twist the strand of the section of hair to create texture.  Also because the curls were more relaxed with this method, I decided to curl alternating sections of hair in opposite directions to achieve a more relaxed, natural, beachy wave.  Prior to using the wand, I curled all sections of hair in the same direction to make it look more uniform and less messy since my hair would come out so curly.  Usually when I curl my hair, regardless of method, it would last for 3-4 days.  It was with the wand method though that with each day, my hair would look better as the curl would relax.  with all other methods my curls would fall out with each day to where only the ends of the hair would hold the curl as opposed to having most of the volume up top towards the scalp.  

This video by AlexandreaGarza helped me to finally find my own way to get the perfect be achy relaxed loose waves I’ve been looking for.  I even started using the L’Oreal Creation Spray used in her video to help with volume and body at the scalp
http://youtu.be/yGXLkntX7SQ

Also this video from ToneItUp features their beachy waves sea salt spray and how they use a wand to get their waves.
http://youtu.be/AOJzdmJVc5s

Compare

Here is what type of curl you will create based on the way you wrap your hair around the wand.