Road test: I tried hot rollers for the first time

Putting hot rollers to the rest.

In the past year, I’ve reviewed expensive brushes, wet hair straighteners and ultra-fast hair dryers. I’ve written about haircut trends and hacks for growing your hair quickly. As it turns out, I love haircare.

However, one thing I’d yet to try was hot rollers. Wanting to pay homage to the OG method of achieving a bouncy, at-home blowout, I decided they were the next hair tool to put to the test.

For more haircare reviews, check out our Beauty section.

Having reviewed a couple of items from Mermade Hair (including their velcro rollers), its new Digital Hot Roller kit felt like a natural choice. I was sent the set a little while ago, and decided to put it to the test ahead of PayPal Melbourne Fashion Festival, a notoriously busy work week.

How to use hot rollers

Ideally, you should begin by using hot rollers on clean, dry hair. This might mean that if your hair is naturally textured, you’ll need to give it a quick blowout first. And of course, apply a good heat protectant to your ends.

When you’re ready, all you need to do is turn it on at the base and wait around 60 seconds for it to beep. Then, you’re ready to go. Essentially, you need to section your hair into strands, taking a small portion of brushed hair (smaller sections will give a bigger bounce). Start at the bottom, placing your ends over the roller and winding it upward, before securing with a clip.

I’d highly recommend watching a tutorial before attempting the roll yourself (like this one). I went in overly confident and struggled right out of the gate. The second time around was a lot easier.

There’s also no strict rule for how long you need to leave them in for, however Mermade’s website recommends waiting 10 to 30 minutes. Then, you can slowly unwind your hair, letting it set for a little while before running your fingers or a wide-tooth comb through for a soft wave.

First impressions

I first tried the hot rollers while getting ready for one of the PayPal Melbourne Fashion Festival runways earlier this week. I didn’t have much time, but I was curious to see how they performed under pressure. I use Mermade’s velcro rollers on my fringe religiously, so I was curious to see how this version compared.

Though the stand for the rollers was a tad bulky, it was still relatively compact and has everything you need, including hidden drawers full of clips. It also heated up within a minute.

Although it took me a second to get the hang of it, the rolling and clipping process was fairly straight-forward, leaving little room for error. Unfortunately there weren’t enough rollers for my hair, so I ended up putting all eight in, while leaving the rest clipped up. This was also fairly handy while getting ready – rather than feeling stuck standing in front of the bathroom mirror, I could roll them up and leave the room to continue getting ready.

The downsides of the hot rollers was, ironically, the heat. While it might come down to my technique, I found it pretty hard to angle and clip them in place to avoid burning my scalp. It wasn’t unbearable, but it was uncomfortably warm, to the point that I had to use a towel to avoid burning my neck.

Though the rollers on the lower parts of my head weren’t too bad, the ones I used around the top of my head and fringe felt fairly heavy. This could be adjusted depending on how much hair you used, but if you have thin hair, it’s something I’d keep in mind.

I left each roller in for 10 to 15 minutes (you can leave them in longer if you want a stronger curl), before unwrapping them, combing out my hair, snapping a photo and running out the door.

Would I try hot rollers again?

It’s hard to measure how long exactly the process took, given I did my hair in sections, however I’d allow at least half an hour to 40 minutes in the future. I liked that the curl dropped into more of a wave, but if you want a stronger, more obvious blowout, then you need to leave them in for longer.

When it comes down to it, Mermade’s Digital Hot Rollers comes in a set of eight (with clips), setting you back $159. Compared to a Dyson Airwrap, which is usually over $600, or a GHD curler, which can sit at around $300, it feels like a great deal.

However, compared to heatless overnight curls (which are free) or the brand’s $20 Velcro roller kit, it could be seen as expensive. With that said, the heat means they’ll likely last longer than the velcro and require far less effort than overnight curls. If you love sampling new hair tools and techniques, then it’s a fun one to add to your arsenal – just be mindful of the heat.

For more on hot rollers, try this.