- I have absolutely burned my neck
and someone thought it was a hickey.
- Who did you make out with?
(upbeat music)
- Hi, I'm Michelle.
We're here today to do our hair using our hot tools.
- I'm Spenser, this is my curling wand.
- My, I guess, weapon of choice
is my handy dandy curling iron.
- Hi, my name is Janna.
I use this T3 hair curling iron?
I don't know, barrel?
- My name is Julie and I've been using
this literally Hot Tools hot tool.
One and a quarter inch curling iron.
- I definitely burned myself more than 50 times with this.
But, you know, she gets the job done
so that's all I can really ask for.
(they laugh)
- Me and the curling iron, we'll spend like a good
30 minutes together at least.
- So since I have a lot of hair,
I try section it off.
I'll like pin my hair up, like half of my hair
and then like curl the bottom.
- Did I find this hair clip somewhere and now I'm using it?
Absolutely.
- Struggle is real.
- I know. - Being women.
Curling iron. - Seriously.
- Oh, okay!
- So here's what's gonna happen.
Oh, you're curling your hair!
You're ruining your hair!
(relaxed music)
- Hot irons have been used to curl hair since ancient times.
- Excavations of Egyption tombs have revealed
devices that may have been used to curl hair.
- Wait, what?
- What kind of device is interesting.
It sticks.
- Servant, please heat up these irons.
I need to curl my hair.
- There's a lack of scientific research
on exactly how heat damages hair
and at what temperatures different levels
of damage can be done.
- Interesting, so they're just telling us
that we can't curl our hair at certain temperatures.
But where are the facts?
(they laugh)
- Because heat styling tools have been around for so long,
it's like.
I'm trying to lower this,
I don't even know how to lower this.
- Can I tell you something?
Mine's at 374 right now and that's actually
like lower than I usually do.
- What?
- Well because you were like, I'm so sorry,
I'm at 330, and I was like, I'll turn it down one notch.
A study conducted in 1984 found that using heat
above 140 Celsius,
I'm upset by this.
140 Celsius, 284 degrees Fahrenheit,
to dry hair can cause permanent structural damage.
- Hmm, but what are we supposed to believe now?
- Wait, wasn't there a fact that said
they don't know yet what--
- Yeah, but now that this is saying that there was
a study conducted in '84.
- Here's the thing.
I don't want my hair to fall out.
- That's true.
- But, you know.
- Professor and researcher Tahira Reid
specifically noticed that the limited research available
did not focus on how heat affects curly hair,
and black hair in particular,
and that textbooks typically overgeneralized hair types.
She and her team have set out to conduct research
focused on finding the temperature at which
curly hair becomes permanently structurally damaged.
- [Janna] Oh God.
- So that hasn't actually been found out yet?
- [Janna] Oh my God.
- We just noticed this now that there's like
only one type of hair being studied.
That's kind of crazy.
Ugh.
(laughs)
- Until late-20th century electric tools
came on the market, heating, curling,
and crimping irons involved a lot of guesswork
which often led to singeing and losing hair.
I believe that.
- Just like we saw in that video with that poor girl.
- YouTube, there weren't enough tutorials.
- She was curling her hair and then literally
that whole like piece of that hair burned off.
- She tried to make the tutorial
and it went very wrong.
- According to dermatologist Dr. Carolyn Jacob,
curling irons and straight irons cause more damage
than blow-dryers.
- And shouldn't be used for more than
three or four seconds per section of hair.
- No!
I actually count to eight seconds.
- Eight?
- Yeah!
'Cause I'm like-- - Oh my God.
I'm out here counting till like 20.
- What?
Girl!
Dang!
- I'm ruining my hair.
Our hair is done.
We're out here, we're looking good.
We've learned today: heat, probably not best for your hair.
- The temperature was like 284, 300 seems like
like a good barometer so maybe 300 or less.
Lesser the better, right? - Yeah, heat in general
can be very damaging to your hair.
But at the same time, we want to look good.
We want to like, you know, use these tools
to like just amplify what we already have
and make it just look better.
All tools, although they do style like similarly,
they are not the same because like this doesn't even have,
there's no--
- Temperature, there's no temperature gauge.
- Yeah, there's no temperature.
- We're damaging our hair.
Is that going to change what I do with it?
- Probably not. - Probably not.
But you know, good to know.
You know what I'm saying?
Great, good to know.
- The more you know.
(they laugh)
But I'm also gonna keep curling my hair.
- I'm still confused as to what a dermatologist
has to do with my hair, but, I guess it grows
from my scalp, so.
- Three, four.
Oh!
- That's not gonna stay, I'll tell you that right now.
(upbeat music)