Nicky Clarke 'Classic Hair' Slim Tong Review


I'll admit... I'm a little bit obsessed with these curls, if your hair looks like this naturally then I hate you. Only joking but I am extremely jealous- I'm sure fellow straight haired girls will agree it would be amazing having hair that did this without any help! I've been after a slim curling wand like this for ages, it seems as though they're quite difficult to find but Nicky Clarke has come to the rescue. As much as I love the beachy effect that a larger barrel gives, they're not always the best choice unless you have really long hair.

I did the curls above in my natural hair without any extensions, and I can honestly say it's the first time I've ever got my hair to look like this. I've used various waving wands and curling tongs over the years, and any curl drops almost straight away. Usually by the time I've finished curling my hair the first pieces will have already dropped out to almost nothing, seriously frustrating stuff. I'm not sure if it was result of curling smaller sections, but this lasted all day in my hair right up until I went to bed which is 100% a first for me- I didn't even use any styling products! While this would look gorgeous with long hair, with it being a smaller barrel it's ideal for mid length or slightly shorter hair too. My natural hair is about mid back length now, but with it being so fine with shorter layered pieces I find I usually dont have enough hair to wrap around a larger barrel to get a nice finish. I usually stick to curling my hair when I have extensions in, but it's nice to finally have a tool that works in my natural hair (because I really don't fancy clipping in hot and heavy extensions all summer...ughh). The way I achieved the look above was by slightly twisting each section of hair before wrapping it around the wand, if you wrap the hair flat against the wand you end up with 'Shirley Temple style' hollow spirals which is quite different to what I was going for. After I've curled all of my hair and let the ringlets cool, I gently loosen it up by breaking up each section which gives this really nice wave.

The only thing I would say here- and this is a problem with all curling tongs with a clamp not just these- is that if you're going to use the clamp it's worth using the lowest heat setting you possibly can. I find that where the tong clamps down the hair it can leave it looking quite damaged at the ends if you have the heat up high and these get incredibly hot, heat setting two (out of five) was easily hot enough to curl my hair. I've been using these as a curling wand and wrapping the hair around the barrel (as you can see from the picture) rather than use the clip, and the curls still turn out perfectly. So that's always an option if you're worried about damage, as this way is a lot kinder on the ends of the hair.

What do you think of this tong? Is it something you'd purchase?