A flat iron is a must-have in your haircare arsenal for styling and straightening hair, but do you know that you’re using it wrong? Here are 10 mistakes that women make with a flat iron, regardless of whether they are a beginner or a pro. By avoiding these mistakes, you can use flat irons like the experts who use them at hair straightening salons.

Using A Flat Iron On Wet Hair

This is probably the biggest mistake you’ll ever make, and this can cause your hair to fry out, like nothing else. You shouldn’t use a hot flat iron on wet hair. The juxtaposition just doesn’t match up. Think about it; if you’re putting sopping wet hair in between two very hot plates of a flat iron, things are bound to go south.

You should wait for your hair to completely dry or use a blow dryer to completely dry your hair and then use a flat iron to straighten it. Your hair won’t look matted, damaged, and fried, rather it will give a glossy sheen that we all know and love.

Bumping Up The Temperature

Yes, a flat iron is supposed to be hot when it’s in use, but that doesn’t mean that you jump straight from 0 degrees to 400 degrees in less than 10 seconds. This isn’t only bad for your hair, but it can affect the heating tool as well. So, when you want to use the flat iron, set it to a medium heat setting and let it get hot for about 2 to 5 minutes. Until then, you can do something else.

Once the time is up, you can use the flat iron on your hair and you’ll see the difference. The heating will be even and the results will be amazing too. If you want to bump up the temperature, then do that and let it get hot, otherwise the heat won’t be even.

Not Using Heat Protectant

This is something that, surprisingly, many women forget about. Your hair can’t do well in heat, that’s a given, yet you will forget to apply heat protectant on the mane to create a barrier between the heat and the hair follicles. Heat protectant helps to prevent excessive heat damage to the hair. If you’re not using it before exposing your hair to heat, then you can kiss your gorgeous locks goodbye.

Also, you just don’t want to apply the heat protectant and call it a day. It’s best that you let it sit in the hair for a few minutes before going in with a flat iron. That will make a world of difference, even if you think that this extra step is redundant.

Using Heat On Damaged Hair

Heat tools are perfect for making your hair go from unruly to amazing, but you have to keep the damage in mind too. You can’t expect a flat iron to magically straighten your hair and make it look front-cover worthy and show no signs of damage.

This mistake is more common than you think, and that’s because women aren’t aware of how damaged their locks are before they clamp the strands in a hot flat iron. If your hair is damaged and fried already, then using heat tools, especially a flat iron, isn’t going to be the best of choices. Moreover, you should be careful with flat irons if you dye your hair frequently.

Clamping The Hair Too Hard

Your hair is not meant to be stretched too much. This can happen when you’re trying to straighten your hair with a flat iron. You might think that clamping the strands super tight in between the plates of the flat iron will do the trick, but you’re making your hair even more brittle and weak and the strands can break if you’re too rough.

Always keep a light grip on the hair with the clamp and let the strands glide through the flat iron. This will give you the best results.

Going Too Fast (Or Sloth Slow)

Straightening your hair can be a bit hard, especially if you’re a beginner, but one thing that you should avoid doing is going too slow or too fast when you’re straightening the hair. Once you make a section, you want to run the flat iron through it for like 5 to 7 seconds, maybe 10, but that’s the limit, and that’s it.

You want to give the heat some time to tame the hair, but not fry your hair to the point where your hair smells toasty. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll be a pro in no time.

This applies to hair extensions as well. However, go to a hair extensions salon Rockville for understanding more about straightening your hair extensions and also for getting high-quality extensions.

Straightening Already-Straight Hair

You might think that it’s completely safe to straighten already straight hair, but it won’t make much of a difference while inflicting damage to the hair. If your hair is already quite straight with just a few strands being a bit wavy, you shouldn’t reach for the flat iron, because that’s only going to damage your hair more.

A flat iron gives the best results when the hair is curly and coiled, so you should figure out some other way to straighten the slight wave in your hair.

Going Over The Same Section

When straightening your hair with a flat iron, you might be tempted to go over the section again, just to “be sure”, but you want to stop yourself. Yes, you can go over the strand maybe once more, but anything more than that, and you’ll be damaging your hair to no extent.

Overdoing the straightening can actually lead to the heat protectant frying out and your hair will be unprotected, so heat will do more damage than ever. So, whatever you do, even though you might be itching to go to your section again with a bit more heat, don’t make that mistake.

Sectioning The Hair – The Wrong Way

The most difficult part of straightening the hair, aside from getting an arm ache, is the sectioning of the hair. You want to master the art of sectioning the strands to ensure that the flat iron straightens the hair perfectly and for that, you’ll need to practice.

Your sections shouldn’t be too thin or thick. Too thin and your hair will burn, too thick and the hair won’t be straightened. So, make the sections about as wide as two or three fingers and as thick as you can see the other side partially.

Not Taking Care Of The Wire

If you’re putting away the flat iron while it’s still hot, then you’re asking for an accident to happen. A lot of the time, we can mindlessly coil the wire around the hot plates of the flat iron and store it away, all before it even has a chance to cool down. This can melt the plastic wire casing and your flat iron will be ruined.

So, whenever you’re done with straightening your mane, let the plates cool down for 10-20 minutes, and then coil it up and put it away.

Conclusion

Using a flat iron isn’t rocket science, but it can mess with your hair if you don’t know some basic tips beforehand. Luckily, this guide will save you from making these detrimental mistakes. If you’re fed up of using a flat iron every day for hair straightening, visit a Japanese hair straightening salon Rockville for permanent hair straightening treatments.