Hot stuff

ASK ANY WOMAN. Getting “the hair” right is up there at the top of the list of priorities and nothing can save the day if your hair is a mess. Women have an almost devotional loyalty to their hairdressers, arranging visits around holidays (the stylist’s, of course) and booking their next appointment when settling their bill.

With salons galore throughout the country and weekly blow-dries not uncommon for some people, it’s safe to say that we take our hair very seriously indeed.

I’m no exception. I love a good blow-dry and I now know what to ask for (it’s called a curly blow-dry in hairdresser speak) and means plenty of bounce and height. But I also yearn to achieve great hair at home, hair that I’ve tamed into a fabulous style that will see me through the day. To this end, I’ve accumulated many styling tools – confident in the knowledge when purchasing each of them that this was the one that would ensure good hair days forever.

Rollers have always been a favourite. Often the first thing to come out of a hairstylist’s kit bag on a photoshoot is a set of heated rollers. Nothing beats them for instant oomph, but they do have some drawbacks. It can be quite tricky to manipulate a roller when it’s hot; speed is of the essence, as they start to cool down as soon as they leave the heating element. Then there are those darn clips that keep them in place – you need to hold the (still very hot) roller in your hair while trying to secure it with the clip. While I do use heated ones for a quick fix, my usual roller is the low-tech velcro variety. They’re cheap, come in a variety of sizes and require no clips as the velcro secures the roller in place. They’d be perfect if it didn’t take half a day for hair to dry in them. The answer is the no-tech hairdrying hood which attaches to your hairdryer and circulates warm air around your head. You may want to do this alone as the romance may go out of your relationship if he sees you in that get up.

There’s now a third option which gives you the best of both worlds. Say hello to TheO, the new roller brought to Ireland by salon owner Dylan Bradshaw, whose eagle eye has him constantly on the lookout for the next big thing. The women of Ireland have him to thank for bringing the 12-week blowdry (a Keratin treatment which smoothes and tames hair for three months, giving the effect of a permanent blow dry) to our shores.

But back to TheO. Developed by the original inventors of the first GHD, this is the next generation of heated rollers and – hurrah – they’re simple to use. Pop the roller in the heating pod, which gets it up to temperature in four seconds (you’ll hear the beep). The clever bit is that the heating element is not in the unit but in the roller itself, which continues to rise in temperature in your hair – yet they are cool to handle and the velcro finish means you don’t need clips. Oh happy day.

TheO costs €180 from Dylan Bradshaw, 56 South William Street, Dublin 2, tel: 01-6719353.