OK, I'm going to admit it, I have a vice. I'm not a particularly vain person. In fact I'm generally a bit of a scruff. I hardly ever bother to wear make-up (far too much like hard work) and I'd rather be comfortable than classy. But I can't resist messing about with my hair.

I've just got through the awful not really long, not really short stage, and it's starting to look reasonable again. The problem I have with my hair though, is that it NEVER looks tidy. It just doesn't do it. Even when I come away from the hairdressers (one of my favourite treats) I still have to go with the (fortunately fashionable) "messed up" look. It doesn't help that I am absolutely hopeless at hairstyling, and besides, I'm not prepared to get up early enough in the morning to faff about for hours with my hair.

I digress. So, there I am at the hairdressers, and having decided what colours I was having in my hair this time, I asked my incredibly understanding hairdresser if she could cut it in such a way that it would work straight as well as in it's natural erratic state. "I can straighten it for you if you want to see what it would look like", she offered. How can a girl refuse?

Of course, I asked my hairdresser for advice on what straighteners to buy myself. I trust her judgement, she always manages to do a smashing job with my chaotic hair. She said she wouldn't recommend anything other than GHD. We discussed the steam straighteners, which seemed illogical to me as steam just makes my hair go frizzy, and she agreed. Others, she felt, simply weren't as effective or gentle on your hair as the GHD.

So, onto the product (at last!). I should point out at this stage that the GHD straighteners are in fact a versatile hairstyling tool, which they call a "hairstyling iron". They don't just straighten your hair, you can also use them to curl, flip, twirl and shine your hair. They even claim to condition it, although quite how running 210 degrees of heat across your hair can possibly condition it I'm not sure. They claim:

I guess that's how then.

You don't have to wash your hair before use, but if you do it helps to blow dry it as straight as you can before you start, just to make the process easier. The instructions state you must NOT use the product on wet hair. I'm sure there's a good reason for this, but don't ask me! Once your hair is bone dry, you're ready to go.

They heat up really quickly - probably ten to thirty seconds. When you turn them on a little red LED lights up. Once the LED pulses you're ready to go. Believe me, they heat up so fast you won't have finished applying that all important serum to your hair ready for straightening.

The irons are lighweight and generally easy to handle. My problems were caused more by my own ineptitude than any fault with the irons themselves. They are about an inch wide - they are not big heavy plates like some of the straightenrs you see. This makes them a bit less cumbersome, and of couse gives them that added versatility to curl, flip, twirl etc. I'm afraid I haven't tried to do any of these (hey, my hair's wavy already, remember) so I can't really comment on how they work for that!

Your hair will stay straight until you wash it/get it wet, at which point of course all those natural curls will return. My hairdresser claims to use them about once a week properly, just "touching up" her hair in the mornings to give it a bit of extra shine. And they really do make your hair shine too! For me, I really have to wash my hair after a couple of days at most, but there was no hint of a return to curl before then.

If you want to muck about with your hair, but you care about keeping it in good condition, I wholeheartedly recommend forking out the vast sums of money required for these over other cheaper straighteners. My past experience with cheap crimping irons (we're going back a long way here!) always left my hair dry and miserable. No such complaints with GHD!