I spent most of my days growing up wishing my poofy, curly, and knotty hair was straight. It wasn't soft and silky like the hair on other girls at school. The flat iron my parents bought when I was in elementary school felt like a blessing, but it was cheap. Its two-inch plates often left me looking like an electrified cartoon character instead of the silky goddess I was picturing.
I have, thankfully, learned to love and appreciate the thick head of curls I'm blessed with, but that doesn't mean I haven't tried more than a dozen straighteners to switch things up. Dyson's Corrale hair straightener is the latest to try to corral my hair, and unlike that very first flat iron I used, it gives me the silky look I'm after. It's also the fastest flat iron I've used and the least damaging—and it works incredibly well on various types of curly hair. But with a $500 price tag, I'd expect nothing less.
The best way to determine a straightener’s effectiveness is to try it on different types of hair. Curls come in all shapes and sizes. What works on my roommate’s long, soft curls might not work on mine, and vice versa. I witnessed the Dyson straightening all manner of curls when I went into New York City for a demo in early March (before the lockdown!), and indeed it managed to do the job on both my roommate's hair and mine with no trouble.
The Corrale's biggest change over traditional flat irons is its flexing plates. They curve around the hair, avoiding the splaying out effect that sometimes occurs and leads to uneven heat distribution. In other terms, when you run a traditional flat iron over a section of hair, a few strands of hair from the section can loosen from the plates' grip and are then exposed to the heat without any payoff.
You can avoid this by using smaller sections of hair at a time and tightening your grip on the iron, but the Dyson's unique design helped me stop worrying about this problem altogether. It also meant fewer passes over the same area, reducing the damage done to my hair.
That's not the only way the Corrale accounts for damage. It has just three temperature settings: 330, 365, and 410 degrees. That might surprise anyone familiar with flat irons. I typically crank my personal flat iron up to 450 degrees to get it to work efficiently with my hair, but the highest setting on the Corrale was more than enough.
OK, so the Corrale can straighten my tough curls. But can it curl? It might seem counterintuitive to straighten curly hair and then … curl the straightened hair, but there are a few reasons.
Straightening any type of coarse or damaged hair will bring attention to the ends, which can often look dry and wiry, making otherwise nice-looking hair appear dull. Adding a simple wave or flip with a flat iron to the ends is a little trick to fix this. (Also a way to get fun Farrah Fawcett curls at a moment's whim.) The good news? The Corrale manages effortlessly.
The size and shape of a flat iron generally determine how easy it is to get curls. For example, a Paul Mitchell straightener I've used (and loved!) for several years has 1.25-inch plates, and while it's possible to get nice curls with it, the process is much more difficult than using a similar model with 1-inch plates. The smallest addition in size increases the chance of maneuverability issues, which can lead to dented, half-formed curls. I wasn't confident the Corrale's large body could do it, but it had no trouble.