I’m a little bit ashamed to say that I have never used rollers before in my life. Actually, that’s a slight white lie. I’ve used them once, and I had to cut them out of my hair. I was about six, and was playing around with some rollers in the bathroom. I had absolutely no idea how to use them, or what they did, but they were pink and looked fun, so I tangled and weaved them into my long blonde (at the time) hair, before glancing at myself in the mirror. I looked utterly ridiculous, and so after having a good laugh at myself, I got to work at taking them out. Or at least, I tried.
I’d put them in with such force that they had knotted around my hair, and since they were really thin and a little bit worn, there was no hope of getting them out with both of us in one piece. After running down to my mum, and her spending an hour trying to free my hair from the evil grasps of these rollers, we eventually had to remove them by cutting them out. Luckily, I hadn’t put them all over my hair, as this would have been disastrous, but nevertheless, until now, I was scarred for life.
After hearing lots of amazing things about Cloud Nine’s ‘The O’ on Twitter, and on other blogs, I decided once and for all to let go of my fear, and try them out. Since my hair is desperately lacking in volume (I hate using hairspray and no amount of blow drying my hair upside down makes any difference), they sounded like a great solution.
Just a little quick re-cap on Cloud Nine, in case you haven’t yet heard of them (although, if you haven’t – where have you been for the last few years!). As the leading heated hair styling retailers on the beauty market at the moment, they are renowned for their knowledge and innovative technology with regards to damage free styling. Their products are heat-based, but they control the temperature and have patented technologies (which are still pretty tight lipped) which provide great styling, without the searing heat and damage you get from other products. According to the beauty experts, they’re better than GHD. In fact, Cloud Nine itself was created by the founders of GHD, so you can be sure you are in safe hands.
Anyway, back to my volume woes. So, after opting to try out The O (the set I got can be bought here), I was initially I little apprehensive about getting my hair tangled again, and similarly – that my hair was going to be too uncontrollable that even the beauty markets leading product was going to fail on me. Luckily, my fears were calmed upon opening the set (which is held together in the most gorgeous black leather carry case), as it didn’t look quite so intimidating and the rollers were much thicker and of better quality than the ones I’d previously used.
Admittedly, it did all look a little confusing, so I had a good read of the instruction booklet before trialing. The basics of the set are that you have the main feature – the O pod, which heats the individual rollers up. You have twelve different sized rollers (for creating different dimensions depending on what section of the hair you are volumizing) and you also have the clips which hold the rollers in place.
After blow drying your hair thoroughly (the rollers won’t work on wet hair), you brush your hair through and plug in the heated O pod. You switch the power button on from the rear of the pod, and so the power indicator flashes red. I know this seems like an obvious statement to make, but there’s a few different colours to remember, and once you have the hang of it, it becomes like second nature. After four seconds (yes, really – that’s all it takes), the pod flashes green four times, indicating you are ready to start heating the rollers.
When you have decided which rollers you are going to use for each section of hair, you simply match the heat indication side (it’s pretty obvious which side this is, as it has a black dot on it) to the base of the pod. Again, the pod will beep four times, indicating the roller is heated up and ready to use. Despite being heated, the rollers will feel cool to touch – making it easy to glide each one into your hair and into place, and will continue to heat up your hair from the inside. Although I’ve probably made that sound far more complicated than it actually is, it basically means that you hair will be heated and volumized, without you burning yourself while putting the roller into place.
Repeat the process twelve times, with each roller, or if you are going for a more subtle look, just use as many as you desire. You will notice when you take the roller out of the pod, that the heat indication spot glows red. This means it is heated and ready to slide into place in the hair. A ‘red’ indication spot also means that you should NOT put the roller into the pod, as re-heating a roller when it is already heated is dangerous, and may break the product. Only heat each roller when the heat indication spot is black.
When all rollers are in place (and clipped and secure with the grips), all you then have to do is wait until all the heat indication spots have turned black, as this means they have cooled down and have locked in the style. To remove each roller, you simply take off the clips and gently tug each roller out of the hair, until it is out. This, of course, was the most nerve-wracking (if you can refer to it as that) part of the whole process, as I was a little unsure as to whether they were going to do the same as before and be all tangled and knotted. Luckily, they didn’t do this and to my surprise, glided out with ease. When removing each roller you hair immediately curls up and flicks back, creating volume and bounce I’ve never experience before. It’s actually amazing how quickly they get to work and how much of a difference they make, especially considering my hair is normally as flat as a pancake.
In fact, upon removing all of the 12 rollers and gently brushing through with my hands, I was astounded to discover just how ‘blow dry worthy’ my hair actually looked. With the likes of Kate Middleton and Cheryl Cole regularly sporting volumised blow-drys which we imagine must cost them an absolute fortune, it’s amazing what you can create from the comfort of your own home – without fiddling about with a hair dryer, hair sprays and rounded brushes – which I can never get right.
Overall, I think The O is absolutely brilliant! Never before did I think I’d be able to achieve bouncy blow dry worthy hair at home, and certainly not by myself. Not only is The O super easy and quick to use, but it’s reliable, simple and effortless. There’s no shaking your hair upside down whilst blow drying your hair, or fiddling about with blow-drying hairbrushes (how do they even work!). Some people might consider it on the pricey side of the beauty market, at £179.95 (was £199.95, £20 off for a limited time) however I personally think it’s worth every penny if you’re fed up of flat hair and can’t afford to have regular blow dries. If you consider that blow dries cost £35/£40 a pop, then the price of The O is the equivalent of 5 blow dries. For me, it’s a pretty simple choice – unlimited bouncy and volumised hair FOREVER, or 5 blow dries?
I’d recommend The O 1000 times over! What do you think? Have you tried The O before, did you get along well with it? Have you had a bad experience with rollers, and had to cut them out of your hair like me? Are you interested in trying out Cloud Nine products?
