OK, so anyway, I wanted to come back and update. After comments from those here speaking from personal experience, I picked up an InStyler. Rather lengthy, detailed review. Might help others who are wavering as I was. Midweek I almost returned it in frustration. But then I learned some things that changed my mind for now. So I picked up InStyler last weekend. Evening time, tried it out on dry hair when I got home, wonderful results. I did a trick my stylist taught me with a curling iron for that 'loose perm' look. (Not the best descriptive phrase, but 70s/80s girls will know what I mean ;) Start at front, working to sides and back with curling rod vertical instead of horizontal. First curl is directed at face, next one directed backward, repeat that alternating pattern till you get to the back, then do the other side. (Or starting position can be reversed, starting curl directed backward, alternate from there.) Results weer good; nice body, soft waves with a bonus: perfect ends, a little wisp of a curl. And lift at the top/crown was perfect. Not exaggerated & unnatural, not whimpering. Just right. I got the 3/4" barrel. 3 heat settings; L,M,H. First night I started out with Low. It does heat fast & gets much hotter than I anticipated. (I rarely use a curling iron but would rate the InStyler Low/Medium equal to curling iron High.) The grip part, a concern of others and me too: it isn't too bad to hold. YMMV and be better than mine. The base is wide and requires opening & closing your grasp as you go. Opening only at the start and end points. The furthest open position your hand isn't extended to the point of stretched. It's closer to position of a normal relaxed hand with palm flat, if that makes sense. On a scale of 1 (a hairbrush) or 2 (standard curling iron) to 10 (impossibly clumsy), I'd rate holding it a 3-5 range. This is where your experience could be much better than mine. My hands sometimes ache from that touch of arthritis appearing. So on mornings I struggle, holding my dryer can feel like trying to grasp & maneuver a brick. InStyler gets a 4/5 then. On good days with full strength & no ache I'd rate it a 3. It can be a bit tricky to maneuver as F2BH mentions, but that improves as you get familiar with it. Results after that first night were disastrous. I tried it every morning, both alone and after using the Conair Spin Brush. After air drying, after blow drying, with product, without, slower movement & pausing, faster straight pass. But the InStyler was doing terrible things. Frizz everywhere, I'm talking major, uncontrollable 'wet it and do over' frizz. And scorching, was really worried I was doing major hair damage in under a week. And strangest of all it was actually flattening my hair from middle to ends. And I do mean pressed flat. Couldn't figure that one out at all due to the cylinder shape. I just couldn't duplicate the nice results from the first use. Very frustrating! About midweek and at the point of giving up & returning it, decided to watch instructions. Couldn't find a DVD in the box (because as I discovered yesterday it's slipped into a little cardboard hang tag on the cord. Duh.) Meantime I watched the online demos and they mentioned use Low Heat for fine hair. hmmmm, could it make that much of a difference? Yes indeedy. That was one problem. After that first successful night on Low, I had been alternating between M and H heat. Simply out of habit, because a curling iron on low does diddly on my hair. One day I did switch InStyler to Low, but after turning it on at a higher heat, so it was much hotter than true Low setting. The other difference was the first night my hair was completely cool. Successive uses after that my hair was wet then dried, then InStyler used. For whatever reason, my hair responds much better to InStyler when it's cool . Easily remedied by switching my routine; blow dry upside down with fingers to give it some fluff, let hair cool while I put on makeup & get dressed, then use InStyler. An accidental bonus discovered. I work at home. Started at 4 a.m. yesterday morning, rushing to meet a deadline. About 9:30 something came up that required an immediate & quick errand. Drat. So busy with work I had done nothing with my hair yet. On the Scary Morning Hair scale, 1 being Run a Brush Through & Go, 10 being Frighten Small Children to Wails 'n Tears, yesterday was a 6. So I had to do something, and fast. Brushed my hair, no product, used the InStyler set on Low, did some quick passes through my hair. And there it was again: nice body, smooth curls just like the first time. And straight from Scary Hair no less! It was all about the heat setting + temperature of my hair. No frizz, no scorching, no flattened sections. Good to know it can be a quick remedy in a pinch. ;) I'm still on the fence about it though. Only because it's been a bumpy week with it. Now that I know Low heat & my hair being cool matters, I'll play with it a few more days. If I consistently get good results, I'm leaning to the side of keeping it. It's another style option & a nice change. Point of all this is even though it's seems obvious at first glance, there are tricks to using this tool and getting good results. Going on the premise that the average female grasps Hair 101 by the time of her late teens. So moving beyond the basics of good cut & products that work best for individual hair, with InStyler a great deal depends on individual hair type & how it responds to various factors. Heat setting for sure. Whether your hair responds best after being recently heated with a dryer or needs cool down time. How long you pause or don't, how fast or slow you go, etc. It's the difference between success or failure. So if you're skeptical as I was, it might be worth investigating but definitely watch online demos or DVD that pertain to your hair type. As far as which barrel, my suggestion would be to use your preferred curling iron size as a guide. Tho I rarely use one, any barrel larger than 1" just doesn't do much for my hair so I knew the smaller barrel would be the better choice for me. As far as the Spin Brush, that one is definitely a keeper for me. I'm still very happy with it. Consistently a nice polished finished look in much less time. It's versatile too. Flipped under, up, back or forward, all works well. There are off days, just like any hair day, but overall it's a great finishing tool & worth it to me. I do blow dry initially, but just to get moisture out, so I tussle my hair with my fingers, upside down, getting extra volume in. Zip through with Spin Brush and I'm good to go and it lasts all day. Where it's especially handy for me is if it's a weak hand day, no worries about being able to hold, let alone coordinate brush & dryer when my hands don't want to cooperate.

Jerzeegirl: I have a less expensive one (Conair from Sally's, don't remember exactly - maybe $40?) that I got to try it out. I figured I'd see how much I used it, if I could use it properly, and then, if I wanted something better or if it died quickly, upgrade. I know nothing about titanium; but when I bought mine, the stylist strongly recommended ceramic Sweeby: I just had my hair whacked from mid-back to chin-length. I had stick-straight hair before babies, but those pregnancy hormones gave me some tiny waviness at the ends. My stylist talked me into trying Curl Conscious Creme from Belle du Jour. I got it at the salon, which is Aveda-affiliated. This was just last Saturday - so I'm still experimenting - but I do see more waviness and crazyness. It's not a heavy creme, btw. Feels more like a light conditioner. Hth - Cate (can you tell I'm procrastinating today? Posts everywhere!)

It not issue of what it contacts. it's the fumes and the off gassing. Just like a perm will smell for awhile. As long as it lasts on your hair your are breathing the stuff whether you can smell it or not.

I am confident that every single one of us have entirely too many anecdotes from our own experiences detailing times when we felt demeaned, objectified, ridiculed, and treated as a “lesser than.” It IS infuriating, and I am also confident that although the push towards being “woke” about such things has achieved a measure of success, there remains a lot of inappropriate garbage going on out there. There remain a lot of gray areas, as well, where even those who have suffered the abuse and know what it is have difficulty in knowing how to appropriately respond in all situations. I know a female EY executive and thought of her when the news broke the other day and outed the firm for their discriminatory “training.” I’ll have to ask for her take on that. She has always struck me as someone who is extremely self-assured and commanding, and I cannot imagine her being on board with that sort of thing. But who knows? Maybe her outlook was more along the lines of going along with the established procedure so as not to rock the boat. I worked for a month – a whopping MONTH – at a small company where the boss referred to women as “skirts.” (Much like the “legs” comment above.) We interviewed during my brief time there for other positions, and he would “jokingly” ask female interviewees if they “did windows and fetched coffee.” Appalling. He threw a party for employees at his home, and insisted on giving female attendees a “tour” which culminated in a very creepy viewing of his bedroom. I will never forget how it felt to be led into that room by him, with his arm draped possessively around my shoulder. I cringe just thinking of that, even now – many years later. I left the company as a disgruntled employee, filing a complaint with the home office against this guy. I do know that legal action was brought against him at one point, but have no idea what the outcome was as I was long gone and moved on to an agreeable environment by then. In thinking of the truly creepy things I’ve endured in the past, I feel a wave of appreciation for those who have modeled respect and professionalism during my career. Most of my superiors have. It makes me a little more inclined to be forgiving towards the occasional lapse of thought and the comment that just comes across strangely. Things like that MAY reflect an underlying attitude, or they MAY just be attributable to social awkwardness. I do think that knowing at least a little something about the intent of the other person can make all the difference in how we choose to perceive their slips.