KISS InstaWave Curler {Review}

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I’m always looking for fun ways to style my hair that involve curls.  (Don’t they say the girls with straight hair always want curly hair and visa versa?!)  Regardless, I’m always looking to try tools that can create curls but only if they are 1- quick and convenient and 2- foolproof.

I’ve got a drawer full of rollers, curling irons and other gadgets that promise to make beautiful beach wave curls.  But most of them either take forever to do or don’t produce the results I’m looking for.  When I heard about the KISS InstaWave, I had to give it a shot because it looked like it created curls very easily and didn’t take forever!

A bit about the KISS Instawave: It is a fully automatic tangle-free curler that instantly creates beautiful, long-lasting curls—but it claims to be different than an average curling iron.  How?

• It’s fully automatic tangle-free curler
• It’s easy for anyone to use, from any angle, with any hand
• It features a curl dial with left/right curl directions
• It automatically shuts off after 90 minutes
• It has two heat settings with a low/high switch
• It retails for $59.99 and is sold at Target, Ulta or Amazon

But does it actually hold up to its claims?  I put it to the test…

First, I went to the KISS Instawave website and watched the video tutorials.  It looked SUPER easy to do!  I busted out the device and turned it on…it heated up quickly and was ready to go when the blue light turned on.

First, you take a 1 to 2 inch section of hair…

Then you insert it into the device…I think the trick here is that you have to make sure the hair goes in between the barrel and the single black holder closest to it.

Then, you use the left/right arrows and curl the hair in the direction you want and hold it for 8-10 seconds (depending on how tight a curl you want) before pulling the device out and releasing your hair.

This took a lot of practice and was quite frustrating for me because the videos make it look so easy!  But my hair wouldn’t follow the outside prongs and be guided in—instead, it would wrap on the outside and fall loose, or pick up other random pieces along the way…and resulted in a curl like this:

FAIL!  Super lame, right?  After several attempts like this, I decided to give up and come back again the next day and try it.  After reading and watching a few tutorials from other bloggers, I tried again and the results came out MUCH better:

Not sure what I did differently to be honest, but on day one, I had just washed my hair and blow dried it, and on day two- I hadn’t done that…so perhaps that was helpful?  The tricky part really is getting your hair to rotate inside the four prongs so that it will curl properly.  Definitely takes some practice but I’m happy to report that it does work!  The KISS Instawave was nice in that I could use slightly larger sections of hair (making the process go quicker) and can get more of a beach wave look instead of tighter curls- which I prefer.

So there you have it!  Try out the KISSInstawave for yourself and get one at Target, Ulta or Amazon and let me know what you think compared to your other curling methods!

Disclosure: I received the KISS Instawave via my partnership with Brandbacker in exchange for a blog review.  All opinions are my own.