We love a good blowdry over flat ironing because of the volume and bounce it lends to our hair. But one isn’t always blessed with time for an appointment and in such situations, a heat styling brush has always come to our rescue.
Having naturally straight hair, the brush from a popular electronics brand has worked well for me. But my partner's attempt to straighten his beard hair with the same brush was rather unsuccessful. Not being a regular user of straighteners, a flat iron has been out of the question for safety reasons for him.
So when Dafni, the brand that popularized hot brushes, launched its new product that promises to be sleek and safe for beard hair too, we couldn't wait to try it out.
Called Dafni Muse, the brush is sleeker than a curling rod and has been designed to help you both curl and straighten your hair. The brush works at a constant temperature of 185 degrees Celsius so that novices don’t have to worry about frying their hair and the bristles are designed to pick tiny hairs from the root to the tips.
We both gave the brush a try by sectioning our hair and using it with and without a heat protector on different sections to see its efficacy. It does a good job at straightening our hair with minimum frizz on both the sections, but the result lasts much longer with the product on. Using hot tools without a heat protector is a direct call for hair damage, but using a product on the beard is difficult and can even lead to breakouts, which is why we try the brush with and without the product on our waist-length hair first.
The design of the brush is excellent to create volume on the crown and the bristles have a great grip on the hair. I managed to create loose waves with the brush with ease too, which I normally use a straightener for. I also tried the brush on someone with thick, curly long hair, and it does a pretty good job of making them look naturally straighter.
For the final test, we try it on a beard, which has only been conditioned and has no other product on. The brush helps us get to the roots without burning the cheek even once, and is much easier to use on short hair. The results are almost as good as a hair relaxing treatment.
One negative: cleaning the brush can be difficult. Hair product is bound to build up on heat styling tools, and using them without cleaning is an invitation to infections and hair damage. And wiping a flat iron is much easier than getting in between the tiny bristles of this brush.
Verdict: If you are someone who likes to step out with smooth locks often or love creating beachy waves and are looking for a quick, at-home styling solution, Dafni Muse makes for a good buy. It’s a useful choice for men looking to straighten their beards for special occasions, minus chemical damage.
