I believe I have mentioned many times that I am hairstyling-impaired. I think I also mentioned that I cut off all my hair.

I usually use a flat iron every day. My hair can get pretty wavy if I let it air-dry, and I haven't been blowdrying my hair cause it's too damn hot outside.

Onto the haircut part. Last year I bleached the living daylights out of my hair. Yes, I, Scrangie, was platinum blonde and I loved it. I loved everything about it except the roots every two weeks. After a while I just got incredibly sick of the maintenance and dyed it back to normal. It looked nice and shiny when it was blonde. When I colored it, the ends looked awful and when my color faded I was left with tricolor hair. Dark roots, okay lengths, weird dirty blonde ends.

The other day I just got fed up, went into the salon and said... GET RID OF THIS!!! FIX IT, PLEASE!!!

The next thing I knew, almost all my hair was lying in a pathetic, fried-looking pile on the floor and when I looked in the mirror I didn't recognize myself. I've always had long hair... Now my longest layer just touches my shoulder. Shortest layer comes to the top of my ears.

Really, I think I'm going somewhere with this story. Bear with me.

The world of hairstyles has just opened up to me. The volume I can get is incredible, and no more fried ends. Now my hair actually looks good instead of okay.

So, turning over a new leaf in my hair life, I decided to ditch the cheap tools I've been using and get a Solia flat iron and hairdryer. My old flat iron was way too wide for these short layers, and the hairdryer sucked to begin with.

HOLY CRAP. What a difference!! This hairdryer, a Solia 1875w Ionic, dries my hair in less than a minute, is very quiet and dries it smooth, not ruffled. I'm not kidding when I say less than a minute. I turn my head upside down, aim for a couple seconds and my hair is completely dry. No sweat.

The flat iron, I dediced to get the 1.25" because the 1" seemed kinda small. This baby heats up to full temp in seconds, doesn't lose heat, slides like butter through my hair and only takes one pass to completely iron out the bumps. I don't have really curly hair, but it does get kinda denty. No burning smell, either. I can actually use it like a curling iron, too.

Why did I ever waste my money on cheap heat tools?! These are so much better there's just no comparison. I can do my hair in two minutes and actually make it look good.

Here's what I've been doing. I've been using a "product cocktail" of sorts. When my hair is wet I use a straightener and a hydrating balm, like TiGi Control Freak and Jonathan Create Weightless Smooth, or Redken 5 and Fekkai Glossing cream. If I want a ton of volume I'll use a tiny bit of mousse. Then I turn my head upside down, blow dry and then add a tiny bit of shine serum. Take the flat iron, straighten any bumps and add a little TiGi Cocky or Nick Chavez amazonian stuff.

Boom, awesome hair in two minutes. I'm giddy.

This is so exciting.