I became sort-of-well-known for fixing up tangled dolls and I keep saying my only claim to fame is having lucked into the right flat iron for the job at the time. There are a LOT of people out there a LOT more skilled at smoothing doll hair than I am.
I do fix a lot of nasty old doll hair and have been using the same flat iron for about 15 years. All this time I’ve worried about when it finally stops working because I hadn’t found another flat iron that worked in the same way, or wasn’t too hot for kanekalon doll hair. You know, that super wispy, super melty hair that Totally Hair Barbie, one of the most tangle prone Barbies out there has?
Recently, when I turn on the old iron, it crackles. That’s…… scary….. Especially considering I tend to flatten doll hair when it’s wet.
So I went looking for flat irons again, in the hopes of finding something similar, and found this one.
The price wasn’t too bad, it looks about the same as my old one in size and features, and hey, my 40th birthday is coming up soon, so I ordered it.
The flat iron is my number 1 tool.
I so think this is just the current version of the same flat iron, really. The only differences are that the heat selector dial turns in the opposite direction (I’ll have to make sure I stay aware of that or I’m going to roast some hair!), it heats up WAY faster even without turbo activated, and the power light flashes until it’s ready whereas the older iron’s light is just on.
The newer iron is a little lighter in weight, too.
A big problem the new one has, though, is that the plates don’t touch unless you really mash the handle hard to clamp them together, or use a glove to press them together with your other hand. I don’t have a glove to use.
Because of that, if you have any wrist or hand pain, you may not be able to use this flat iron. I predict a lot of pain for me when I do my next large hair detangling project.
First I tried it on the lowest setting on an older Barbie with kanekalon, and it didn’t melt! I don’t have a picture of that because that doll’s hair had already been flattened and it didn’t look any different.
Then I went down and grabbed this spare Prettie Girls Kimani head I had laying around, having realized it’s the only bad hair in the house at the moment, and tried the new flat iron on some mid-grade nylon.
This hair is dry and hasn’t been conditioned, which are NOT the conditions under which I generally flatten doll hair. I usually do condition first and then go over it while it’s still damp. Works better that way.
It worked out fine. Conditioning and flattening while damp would have a better result, but as long as I remember to clamp down harder on the handle, this new Conair Instant Heat will do the trick.
I have NOT tried it on ultra-low-heat hair like on old Creata dolls, but considering it is hot enough to flatten nylon on setting 1 (which is the same setting I used on the kanekalon), then it likely is too hot for Creata hair.
I’m very pleased to have found a replacement for my older iron before it kicked the bucket.
