I have been back at work just one week and I am already struggling to write. This past week has been challenging and tiring both in just getting back into the routine of going to bed at a reasonable hour and getting up early (I am NOT a morning person). I rarely have breakfast so being able to sit down in the mornings and have a proper meal was something I truly enjoyed. I am also still trying to keep up with meal planning and baking since I don’t plan on getting prepared food anytime soon. I know we want to support local business and restaurants, but the process of sanitizing the packaging the food comes in reminds me so much of grocery shopping that in my mind, it isn’t worth the stress. I can feel that at some point I will want some takeout as I miss some of my favourite restaurants, but right now we are still enjoying cooking everything. I am all for buying a meal for someone else though so once I get back into the groove of work, I plan on continuing what I started earlier this year with buying from local and small businesses and giving to charity. I just got some cute reusable face masks from the Vancouver Aquarium for my husband and I as they have and will lose much of their tourism business this year like so many other places, but I have a soft spot for animals so I will happily support them. Now, I have totally digressed, but such is the way of things since this pandemic began so I’m sure many of you can relate!
PR gifted from LDBeauty
I’m just going to say it – putting my hair into a heated and mysterious “black box” freaks the hell outta me. When the Curl Secret came out, I was scared and even though it was given to me at an event years ago, I never had the courage to use it. With a standard curling wand, I know that there is an easy “escape” if something goes wrong as there is no real mechanism holding my hair in place. When I saw a preview of the Unbound Cordless Auto Curler at the LDBeauty event last Fall, I thought it was so cool that I really pushed myself to try it there. After a few demos, I felt confident enough to try it on my own hair and I had some decent results! I received my own Unbound Curler a month later, but it wasn’t until Quarantine that I picked it up again and gave it a good test run which yielded some not great, okay and then good results!
Quick Stats:
- Rechargeable
- Up to 60 min of run time (depending on settings and hair length and type)
- Multi-directional curl action
- Heats up to 400°F
- Anti-tangle protection (I think this depends on your hair type…)
- Ceramic coated barrel
- Variable heat and timer settings
- LCD display
- Turns off automatically after 15 minutes
- Charges by USB (included)
I have a demo of how to tinker with the settings in my Instagram Hair Highlights, but once you have decided on the temperature, timing and direction of curls you would like, wait until you hear a beep and you will know that the curler has heated up to the desired temperature. With my KISS Instawave, I curl for about 10-12 seconds, but with the Unbound, I found that 6-8 seconds seemed to be enough.
The unit itself was a bit heftier and wider than I thought it would be, but still comfortable to hold for the 15 minutes it took to style my hair. It also fits easily into a purse and would pack well for any vacation (whenever we get to go away again).
The hardest thing to get the hang of is sliding your hair into the slot and making sure you only put it about a 1 inch section of hair. Once your hair is in, you can press the START button and the barrel will start winding in whichever direction you have specified (L, R or mixed). Now, I did get my hair caught in the barrel the first time I used it on my own and for a moment I was convinced I would have to chop off my hair. The Unbound does have a fail safe built in where if it detects tangling, the barrel starts to unwind the hair so that you can then pull the barrel straight out. I probably put too much hair inside so even the fail safe didn’t work right away so I had to do a little bit of fancy maneuvering to jimmy out my hair!
The barrel is about 3/4 of an inch which is smaller than I am used to using so the curls generated from the Unbound will be TIGHT. Even when I set the heat and time on the lowest settings, the curls were still very tight. My hair holds a curl almost too well so even brushing them out does nothing and the only way they relax is with a couple of days without washing my hair. I also have very long hair so compared to a wand where I could spread out my hair over the whole length, the Unbound will start to concentrate the ends of my hair all at the bottom of the barrel which leads to very tight curls just at the ends. I found that the nicest curls came out when I started at my ear. It was also just the right amount of hair that would still curl without getting caught in the mechanism.
The Unbound also communicates to you through a series of beeps so the first beep being “I’m hot enough for use now”, the second being “I now have ALL of your hair around the barrel” and the final beep being “I have now curled your hair to perfection so please release”. I think there was something lost in translation here as I never actually heard the third beep. Unless I was counting far too fast, but I may be merging the second and third beeps together, but from the Conair video I should hear a third set. The last thing I wanted to do was lose track of time and have singed my hair so I would just count out loud. With coloured hair, you really want to avoid doing too much heat if you can as it makes the colour not last as long.
Fresh Curls
Second Day Curls 
Final verdict: After some trial and error, the Unbound did find a place in my styling routine as it was quite quick and easy to just curl and go. I also felt like my space was “cleaner” because there was no cord getting in the way. One thing I didn’t really like was the fact that the curls were inconsistent. Sometimes they would be perfect, other times too curly or just too straight. I think the Unbound works better on shoulder length hair and hair that isn’t too thick. For a demo on shorter hair, check out Bree’s Review! If you have long hair like me, but thicker, it will probably take you at least 20 min to do your hair since you have to work in small sections. The next thing that isn’t so nice is the price of this as $120 is a lot to pay for curls you have little control over, BUT it is cordless and very convenient. The curls DO last and I really think those with shorter hair will have a lot of fun with being able to do curls in probably half the time I did mine so if the price doesn’t scare you too much this is a handy little hair gadget to have, but just make sure to take your time and work in small sections to get the hang of it!
You can find the Conair Unbound Cordless Auto Curler at London Drugs.
