Road test: My mum and I tried the Mermade Double Waver

Like mother, like daughter.

When it comes to hair trends, I’m an easy target. Just over the past few years, I went from having long brown hair with blonde highlights that I would rigorously curl in a desperate attempt to recreate Matilda Djerf’s iconic look. Then shortly after, I cut it all off in favour of a short, layered wolf cut.

Now, I’m somewhere in between. I like to play with hair trends but I try to refrain from doing anything too drastic (or too permanent). More recently, I’ve been playing with heatless curls and rolling my hair up overnight with the tie on my bathrobe.

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After a little scrolling online, I came across a creator with the kind of wavy hair that attracts countless comments from people, eager to know how to do it themselves. Eventually, she replied to one user and mentioned the Mermade Pro Hair Waver. Rather than the loose barrel curl you get from a standard curler or hair roller, her hair had this effortless, subtle beachy look to it. It felt ‘undone’, like she hadn’t spent an hour in front of the mirror perfecting it.

After reaching out to Mermade, I got my hands on its new Double Waver to try out – and considering my mum and I have such polar opposite hair, I figured who better to help me put it to the test. My hair is thick, long and dark, hers is short, fine and blonde.

The process

Admittedly, a good time to try out a new hair tool is not right before an event. For one, it can (no, it will) end up taking at least twice as long as you’ve estimated and two, if it’s not quite what you thought, then you’re stuck with it for the whole event.

I had blowdried my hair the night before and added some heat protectant before sectioning it and setting the waver on the highest heat setting. The process itself was fairly easy – you just need to clamp down on your hair and repeat. However, I have a lot of hair, so this took me about an hour to fully work through. My mum, on the other hand, was done in five minutes.

“​​I delayed trying it for the first time because I thought it would take ages to do,” she told me. “Turns out, it was super easy to use… I used the lowest heat setting because I wanted a soft wave and to limit any heat damage, but my hair held the wave nicely.”

The results

After finishing up with the waver, I felt a little defeated. I was hot (from using such a high heat setting) and running late. Rather than soft, loose waves, I’d achieved a little too much volume. I also hadn’t quite considered how to style my short bangs and had instead, blindly clamped down.

After some quick adjusting, I ended up clipping up my hair to add some shape and threw my fringe into a hair roller as I ran out the door.

When my mum arrived at my door a week later, I was full of hair envy. I’d guessed it was going to suit her short hair and it did. Where it had made my hair feel too thick and wild, hers was subtle.

I ended up liking the result on my own hair a lot more in the days following – the wave loosened overnight and the volume slowly eased up, giving me the ‘undone’ result I was after.

Would we try it again?

I’m looking forward to trying this one again. I want to play around with the heat settings and perhaps try using a lighter touch, rather than clamping down on every hair on my head. Though I’m not prepared to throw in my hair curler or bathrobe tie just yet, the Mermade Double Waver does gives you a different kind of look, and I can see myself adding it to my rotation.

When I asked my mum whether she’d try it again, she laughed and told me she “already has”.

 For more on heat protectants when using styling tools, head here.