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Hi, this is Sarah from Hair Thursday.
Today, I want to show you how to get a smooth, straight,
and shiny hairstyle using your flat iron.
It only takes four simple steps, so let's get started.
The first step to achieving this perfectly smooth
and straight look is to prep your hair.
And what I mean by prepping your hair is washing and drying it,
and preferably using a round brush or a large paddle brush
to kind of smooth out any waves or kinks that you might have
in your hair already.
Starting out with a good base like this before you do a flat
iron ensures that you won't have any strange little
kinks or waves towards the top of your hair.
So, what I've done so far is washed my hair, and then I took
my blow dryer out and blew dry my hair with a round brush.
And, as you can see, it's not really super smooth, you know,
we've got some frizzies here, and it's kind of wanting to
flip up and everything.
But I've made sure to get rid of any waves or kinks in the top
of my hair, which will make the end result look a lot better.
When you're prepping your hair, be sure to
use a heat protectant.
And there are what seems to be hundreds of heat protectants
on the market right now, whether it be a cream, or a gel,
or a spray, or a pomade,
whatever you want to use for your specific hair.
Just be sure to put something on to protect it.
What I've done is use a heat protectant spray on my damp hair
before I dried it, so now my hair is prepped and ready to go.
It doesn't have any waves or kinks throughout, and it also
has a product in it that's going to protect it from the heat
of my flat iron.
The second step for flat ironing your hair
is to be sure and section it off.
It's very, very difficult to be sure you get all of the pieces
of your hair when it's just kind of laying flat.
So, what you want to do is pin some of your hair
up into a clip.
For instance, I usually go from about my ear -- right above my
ear -- across the back of my hair, and I just put it up with,
you know, a cheap old banana chippy clip,
or whatever you have.
Just be sure to get it out of your hair, and then,
pull your hair in front.
If your hair's super short, obviously you can't pull it
in front, you'll just have to work through the back.
But you just want to take these sections and pull it forward.
Be sure your hair is really smoothed out, that there aren't
any tangles or snags, because if you flat iron on top of that,
it's going to create a crimp.
So get your hair sectioned out, and we're ready to go.
The third step in flat ironing your hair
is flat ironing your hair.
And you can use several different kinds of flat irons.
I prefer a one-inch, because it works for all lengths of hair,
but if you have really long hair, you might want to buy
a flat iron that has two-inch plates so that you can
cover more area in a shorter time.
But what you want to do is, most of the new ones these days
have temperature controls, you want to set your temperature.
This one actually goes up to 450 degrees.
For my hair, which isn't too difficult to flat iron
really straight, I use about 300, 350 for my hair.
But it's something that you'll just kind of find over time,
which works best for you.
So what you want to do is make sure it's really hot,
and you're going to section off a piece of your hair.
Probably about an inch, or a little over an inch in width,
because if you take too much hair, it's going to fall out
the side while you're trying to flat iron, and then you'll be
in trouble because you won't be able to tell which parts
you've done and which you haven't.
You want to start up towards the top of your hair,
about this high, and then clamp down and pull down in a smooth,
steady motion through the ends.
And, as you can see, it creates a very shiny and straight look
compared to the other hairs next to it.
So, the most important thing is to keep the iron moving
at all times.
Do not stop, do not try to go over it again,
just start at the top and pull down.
If you find that you've made a mistake, just wait a couple
minutes until your hair cools down completely,
and you can start over again.
So, you just want to keep on working your way down, like so,
grabbing hair from underneath, and just working until
all of the hair looks straight and uniform.
When you've worked throughout the entire lower section of
your hair, then go ahead and release about what --
about half of what's left.
So then, just use your fingers to divide around the crown
of your head, clip it up, and then pull these hairs forward.
And you'll be able to tell which hairs haven't been flat ironed,
because obviously they'll be a little bit wavy,
or just not really straight.
And then you want to go ahead and start working through these
layers, one inch at a time, all the way through the ends,
until it all looks super shiny and straight.
And then, once again, release the rest of your hair on
the top, and then work through straightening the top layer
of your hair.
Now that you've finished flat ironing all the sections of
your hair, the last and most important step, I think, is to
put a shine-enhancing product to help close the cuticle
and make your hair look super, super shiny.
One of my very favorite products is Frederic Fekkai's Glossing
Cream, which is made of olive oil, and you just want to
put a tiny, pea-sized amount into your hand,
just a tiny little dab, as you can see here.
Rub it throughout your hands, let it get really warm and
emulsify, and then just run it through your hair.
This will help to make your hair look so very shiny,
and just make it smell nice and keep it protected.
So, there you have it.
Here's the finished product.
Super straight, sleek, and smooth, and it was super easy;
only four steps.
So, I hope this helped, and I'll talk to you guys soon.
Bye.