Friday, July 13, 2012

GHD Gold Professional 1" Styler Review!

GHD Gold Flat Iron Review

GHD Gold Professional 1" Styler

The GHD Gold Professional 1" Styler ($225) is GHD's sleekest styler ever, with a cooler, lighter body, smoother plates, and an bonus protective plate guard for storage and travel. Rounded barrel and contoured plates means you can not only straighten hair with this professional styler, but create curls, waves, and flips. Sleep mode provides added safety and universal voltage means no converter while traveling, makes the GHD your go-to styling iron.

Throughout the years, I've owned countless flat irons and have never really been 100% satisfied with any of them. For reference, this flat iron is my first GHD flat iron - I've never owned any comparable brands (Chi, T3, Solano, etc).

I've been using this flat iron for the past month now, so if you'd like to know what I think of this iron, please keep reading!

GHD Gold Flat Iron Review

Product Features

  • Includes protective plate guard to cover hot plates for easy storage and travel
  • Cooler, lighter body
  • Smoother plates
  • Professional finish
  • Ceramic heaters
  • Contoured plates
  • Rounded barrel
  • Heats up to 374F
  • Sleep mode
  • Universal voltage
  • 2-Year Manufacturer's Warranty

When turning the iron on for the first time, I automatically noticed that there is no temperature control switch, just an on/off switch. Already I was a bit apprehensive because I usually need very high heat for my thick, curly hair and low heat for my bangs (in order for them not to be stick straight and flat).

GHD Gold Flat Iron Review

When the iron is switched on, it beeps, and the switch will light up and blink to indicate that the iron is heating up. Seconds later, it will fully heat up, and beep three times more and the light will stop blinking to indicate that it's ready for use. This iron heats up in less than 30 seconds, and is definitely faster than any other iron I've used.

I don't normally forget to turn my flat iron off after use, but it's a habit to plug in my flat iron before I'm actually going to use it to give it time to heat up. After 30 minutes of being idle, the iron will go into sleep mode and beep every 10 seconds as a reminder that it's on, and it's still plugged in. I think it's a pretty sweet feature.

My hair type:
Long (down my back), thick, curly - a mixture of loose curls and waves (not kinky), dry and fine. My hair is like a difficult child that does what they want, when they want and won't listen to authority. 

With that said, I need a pretty good iron if I want my hair to be perfectly primped.

I always start with the underside of my hair first, and comb out one inch sections. With one pass of my iron my hair is fairly straight, but two passes is needed because my hair is long, and with a thin plate flat iron, little areas can get missed. It takes around 20-25 minutes to get through my hair.

GHD Gold Flat Iron Before After

It doesn't pull my hair, snag, and my hair glides smoothly through the plates without causing bends in my hair.

What stands out the most to me about this iron is that it leaves my hair soft and shiny. It doesn't feel dry or fried and brittle like other flat irons I've used. Also, when flat ironing my bangs, I always style them on low heat so they'll fall naturally, rather than looking stick straight and in the way. This iron styles my bangs perfectly!

I have to mention that I never wear my hair straight, but I have to use a flat iron when I wear my signature loose waves. My curls are tighter toward the roots and remain semi-tight a couple inches down my hair, and after that, the curls loosen up. So, I section my hair off and flat iron from my roots to about 1/3 down my hair, leaving the bottom curly. I then use a large barrel curling iron to curl my hair. It may seem like I can use any flat iron for this and get the same results, but I can definitely notice a difference in how healthy my hair appears.

Because I have very long hair, this flat iron wouldn't be the best model for me for wearing my hair straight, as the plates are so small. If I did in fact wear my hair straight, I'd opt for a model with larger plates. For what I need this flat iron for, this model works just fine.

I wouldn't say this particular model would be the best for thick, coarse, kinky or very long hair, as I don't think it gets hot enough. But if you have short to medium length hair, with fine and normal texture, it's amazing.

$225 is a huge price to pay for a flat iron, and isn't in many of our budgets. But for those who are willing to pay an arm and a leg for professional hair tools, I'd definitely recommend looking into a GHD.

The Round-Up

Pros:
  • Fast heat-up (under 30 seconds)
  • Lightweight
  • Easy to use
  • Swivel Cord, doesn't tangle easily
  • Sleep Mode - "sleeps" after 30 minutes of being idle
  • Can create curls as well as straighten
  • Makes hair soft and shiny
  • Doesn't snag or pull hair
  • Doesn't dry out the hair

Cons:
  • The temperature goes up to 374 degrees F, so those who typically need 400 degrees and over for stick straight hair (very thick, tight curly and kinky hair) may want to look into a different flat iron. 
  • Can't control the temperature
  • Beeping is annoying - but is nevertheless helpful.
  • Very expensive

Price: $225, Folica.


15 comments:

  1. This is such a nice iron! But wowww very expensive. One day.. :)

    thnx for sharing.

    xxx

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  2. This was a great post, but a bit to late for me. I just had to retire my old Chi which still works great but it's 8 years old. I didn't' know much about GHD at the time I bought another CHI (Which I love my chi)Also my Chi line has never let me down, I was very up in the air. I do like the look at the GHD and that would be the seller for me and the fast warm period. The only kicker is close to $300 dollars here in Canada to perches from Sephora. That was another thing i didn't like about it.

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  3. I love GHD and I love the limited edition Pink cherry Blossom, I just published a post on my blog about it, it´s a great initiative, thanks for sharing

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  4. We seem to have similar hair textures, I use the Paul mitchell Express ion smooth iron and I can't express how much I LOVE it. It's 1.25'' so it's a good size and the temp is adjustable. You can even curl with it and the curls last much longer than using an actual curling iron. I'm going to try your tip on lowering the temp for my bangs b/c I don't like that stick straight look in the front either.

    Xo

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  5. Hi Nat! Thanks for sharing!
    I use a flat iron to curl my hair once in a blue moon, but I notice that after I'm done, I have a lot of flyaways and my hair is noticeably more static-y. Any suggestions?

    http://ohtheendlesspossibilities.blogspot.com/

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  6. Look into the Izunami it's PERFECT for anyone with thick, curly, or kinky hair. It goes up to 450 and can be used for Keratin treatments as well. I LIVE for my Izunami LOL.

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  7. The Sedu 1" iron is the best I've come across. Chi's are typically stated to be ceramic but they are not 100% therefore damaging the hair. With one swipe of the Sedu my hair is shiny and straight and is still pretty healthy.
    Plus the price is at $160, much more reasonable in my opinion than the GHD.

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    Replies
    1. Wow, I'm going to look into the Sedu. I've seen some really great reviews for them, but it's not a brand I'm too familiar with. TY so much!

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  8. I didn't have the budget to buy a GHD, so I got a T3 and it's amazing! Way better than a Chi, I think. Maybe try one from that brand? Would love for you to review it.

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    Replies
    1. I've wanted to try a T3 as well! I've read a mixture of good and bad reviews with the T3 Single Pass Flat Iron - which is the one I was particularly interested in, so I ended up passing on it. I really want to try their hot rollers and featherweight blow-dryer, though! Which one did you get?

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    2. you can't get T3 here in the UK anymore unfortunately. I used to have the 1 inch and they definitely compared favourably to ghds. I also had the T3 Evolution dryer (not sure if that's still available in the US) which was amazing, but really expensive, think I paid £175 for it at the time. It really did speed up drying time, but unfortunately it went to the great salon in the sky a couple of years ago :-(

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  9. Just a quick addition to my comment above. ghd totally dominates the market here in the UK, but its biggest competitor now is probably the Cloud Nine. Not sure if you get them in the US, but sure they will be over there shortly and they are a very close second. I've compared the ghd and the cloud nines here, with the ghd gold just coming out on top!

    We don't really get CHI etc over here, so never had a chance to use them. Ranking the T3, ghd Gold and Cloud Nines I would say: -

    1) T3 (although I may be looking back through rose tinted spectacles!)
    2) ghd Gold
    3) Cloud Nine

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  10. my hair dresser. uses. one and it is great her is at 450

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  11. You seriously can't go wrong with ghds. We use all 3 sizes in the salon aswell as the new ghd Curve tongs and wands.

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