HOT TOOLS 2018 MODEL Pro Artist 24K Gold Curling Iron Long Lasting Defined Curls 1-1 4 in

Great curling iron! Heats up quickly, curls hair beautifully, and holds the style for a long time. Easy to use and gentle on hair. Always delivers excellent results — highly recommend. Read more

I previously had a Bed Head, 1" clipless iron that I bought for $8 at Target on sale. It definitely took practice to get to use well (I burned myself a couple of times), sometimes the curls would fall nicely sometimes not. Overall, I felt the 1" barrel was too thin for my personal tastes, but I could make it work if I tried and had a lot of time to work with it. I don't hate the iron, and I'm keeping it just in case (it can make some nice looks too!), but I wanted a new iron that fit my needs better. I bought this for myself for my birthday, so I could dress up a little and feel fancier while going clubbing or going to special events. I always wanted to curl my hair but didn't feel a curling iron was worth the investment [normally $50-$60 for a better quality iron] for me personally, as I can't imagine curling my hair often. The price of this one was just so great (a little less than $30), I couldn't help myself. Pros: --1 1/4" barrel The curls are exactly what I wanted: voluminous and sexy. If you leave the curler in you hair for less time, you can have cute waves, too. Some styling and you just look like you worked so hard. Having all of the sections in 1" curls was not always flattering on my long (mid-back level), slightly layered hair. It could look a little like a lion's mane haha, if I wasn't careful. Oftentimes I'd pull some back to do a half-up, half-down to make things look better. This 1 1/4" is just so much more ideal for me. [Maybe check Youtube videos and see what girls use when they curl their hair for examples?] --Clip The clip prevents you from using your hand to wrap around the barrel and is therefore relatively safer imo. I would sometimes not use a glove with the clipless (not recommended), but lightly burned myself once. Still, you have to be careful with either--both are safe as long as the user is safe! The clipless effect does look a little different--The main difference is the slight crease where the clip holds onto the end of your hair--but I don't mind. To me it's a little too much effort with my long hair to deal with the clipless iron. --Heat settings Talking with friends of mine who curl their hair far more often than I, I heard a couple of times that a better quality (read: more expensive) curling iron with heat settings is really worth the investment. And normally higher quality ones have heat settings. According to some previous reviews I chose not to use the highest setting right away. I generally keep this one around the same heat: A mid-level makes nice looser curls on my normal (not too thick) hair. --Aesthetic I love black and gold together, so this just looks so nice to me. The gold is also supposed to be a good material to make a barrel out of! For smoother curls. --Value $30 is not bad for a Hot Tools curling iron. Cons: --Can't think of any yet! I've had no problems. Read more

Nice, easy to use. The curling iron does snag my hair and rotates with my hand movements. I bought a second one for travel. Read more

Purchased 6/2010, reviewed 6/2014: Well, better late than never. I bought this curling iron for my wife, after reading online reviews. She LOVED this curling iron. She liked that it heated up fast, opened and closed well, gripped her hair when she wanted it to, and let go when it was supposed to. I couldn't say exactly when it went from "love" to less than that. But it started probably around the two year mark, after being used on average, about once per week. It started to not heat up really well, and I think that there had been a flaw of some kind in the power cord, at the point where the cord attaches to the swivel connection on the iron. There was no visible problem, anywhere on the cord. It eventually got to the point where it didn't heat at all. That was probably in this last year, so it was a good 2-3 years old, I would say. So this last winter, about 2/2014, I took the thing apart, and couldn't find a thing wrong. I put it back together and kind of told my wife that it was her imagination--I don't know, I think I was just too busy at the time to be bothered. Then when I saw her a few weeks later using another old curling iron, and I asked her why she wasn't using the her favorite, and she said it just doesn't work anymore. So I figured maybe she wasn't making it up :) I took it apart again, and put an ohm meter on the cord part, and it was not good. I figured it unlikely that it was in the actual cord. So I started to cut into the thick part of the cord where it had a reinforced curve in it, and was able to get down to where I found that there must have been a break there. I cut that part of the cord out, soldered the cord onto the connectors that had been inside that molded reinforced curve, and put all of it back together with epoxy as something of a new homemade connection to reinforce it, and she was off and running again. Then in just the last few months, probably when the curling iron was about 3 1/2 years old, my wife started complaining that the curling iron was not gripping her hair well enough, and was slipping, and also that it was making a squeaking sound whenever she opened and closed the pincers--don't know if that's the right term. I am also not sure I understand another comment that she made, though, that she has trouble getting her hair out of it when she finds it is slipping. Anyway, all of that doesn't matter. I just looked at the spring area and could see that up underneath where the spring is, the point that contacts the pincer just below the thumb knob, there is a tiny roller that helps the spring to slide quietly back and forth, that was off center, and it also wasn't rolling anymore. It was mostly sliding. So I adjusted it to the side a little, and liberally sprayed some dry lubricant on it. The action works better, and it doesn't make any noise, so we will have to wait until she uses it again to see if it works. So as of today 6/16/2014, the iron is still going after approximately 200+ uses, albeit with some required tweaking to keep it out of the garbage. I would like to believe that the power cord issue that we had was a rare defect, and that most people never run into that. I'm thinking that most people could use this iron over 200 times and probably just be starting to have a squeaky spring issue, and that's about it. If I were to have to start this product search again, I would definitely take a chance again on this iron, and hope that we didn't get the cord defect in that reinforced bend near the swivel. For the money, and the use that we've had with this, I think it's a great deal. I actually just realized that we probably have used it many more than 200 times, as we have four girls aged 12 and under as well, but they generally don't get their hair curled, although on some special occasions, several of them do. Details on my star rating: Why did I ding this by one star? Well, although I would buy it again in a second, Amazon's star system equates four stars with a "like it" and five stars as a "love it." I could imagine some engineering tweaks to their design that would eliminate the issues we had. Also, I saw the inside of it when I was working on it, and although the parts were adequate, I would be cheating a curling iron with better quality parts that deserved the five stars, if I were to give this one five. As I've said in other reviews that I've written, to me, either four or five stars is a "buy with confidence" in my book. I wouldn't buy anything again with 1-2 stars on my scale, and a middle-of-the-road three star review by me would be "your mileage may vary" and would be a 50/50 shot. Read more

Simply the best curling iron I have ever used! I will only buy this brand now. It’s not very expensive for the quality and function of this iron! Read more

I love the Hot Tools brand— it’s the highest temperature that I’ve been able to find. I need extra heat to curl my heavy, straight, fine hair. This is the third one I’ve purchased (all different sizes) they last a long time and are worth the money. Read more

You control heat setting, curls well to give volume to hair, heats up quickly and maintains heat, Well made, I travel with it, very good quality Great price....a store nearby wants $95, Read more