These are the best straighteners and flat irons you can buy

GHD’s gorgeous Platinum+ offers snag-free styling that adapts to your individual technique and lessens the damage that can be caused to hair by excessive heat styling and straightening.

The Platinum+ straightener’s ‘ultra-zone’ predictive tech intelligently adapts to your styling technique, adjusting the power to ensure an optimum temperature at all times for healthier hair and faster, better results. This is single-stroke styling at its best, suitable for all hair types.

You’ll find improved styling in a shorter space of time, and results that last much longer. The Platinum+ is still relatively expensive, given its feature set, but worth every penny.

The Dyson Corrale’s claim is that its technology reduces heat damage. But the real reason to buy it is its incredible build quality. It’s a beautifully made styling tool, with loads of great features.

It can be used corded or cordless (where it has up to half an hour of charge), it has three temperature settings and its flexible plates also have ionic smoothing technology. It works quickly and effectively.

However, the brilliant engineering comes at a cost beyond the actual (and very high) price of this straightener. The Corrale is heavy and chunky and for some people, that will – very literally – outweigh the advantages of cordless straightening. This also makes it slightly less travel-friendly, in spite of the attractive travel pouch it comes with and the flight tag it’s equipped with.

The Strait isn’t cheap but this is one of the best-priced hair straighteners in this round-up. It comes in blue or olive green (to match MDLondon’s Blow hair dryer), with gold detailing, and its colour options alone set it apart from the majority of rivals.

It’s quick to heat up and you can choose from one of 11 temperature settings, between 130 and 230°C. This is a big plus for day two styling, where you might just want to run a straightener through your hair at a low temperature to revive a silky style.

It’s light and slim, so it makes a good travel companion. Still, although the 3m long cable means you’ll have plenty of space to manoeuvre, it does make it bulkier and heavier to pack. It comes with a heatproof mat that you can wrap around the straightener for storage and packing.

On the minus side, its narrower plates may make it harder to achieve one-pass styling for some hair types and we wish that the tongs locked for travel.

If you’re after poker-straight hair, quick results and less hair damage, the Dyson Airstrait could be the one for you. It’s beautifully made and high quality but, like most Dyson styling tools, it’s bulky, heavy and pricey.

Rather than being traditional metal or ceramic plates that heat up, the Airstrait’s plates feature vents that blow hot air to dry and straighten your hair. There is a choice of temperatures: 80°C (175°F), 110°C (230°F), or 140°C (285°F) in Wet mode, and 120°C (250°F), 140°C (285°F), or a top-up “boost” in Dry mode.

To use the Airstrait, you’ll first need to towel dry and detangle your hair, then blast your roots with hot air and straighten the length of your hair as usual. We found that it gave fast, shiny results – although the styling didn’t last quite as long as with traditional flat irons.

It has a self-cleaning mode for the plates themselves and you’ll get an alert when it’s time to clean the filter. The key thing to be aware of is that this is not the ideal travel styler, given its size and the fact that the plug is optimised for whichever country you buy it in, so if you’re planning to upgrade to the Airstrait, hang on to your existing straightener to chuck in your bag when you’re away.

This compact straightener is lightweight at just 304g but it packs a punch in terms of power, giving you one-pass straightening. It’s incredibly impressive for its size. It also looks good, and comes in a choice of black or white, with nice details like chrome accents and white LED indicators.

In the box is a heatproof, zip-up travel case, USB-C lead and plug adaptor, so you can charge it via or USB or at a standard plug point. The tiny lead can fit into the travel case with the straightener, so if you’re travelling with a plug adaptor with USB slots to charge other tech, you won’t need to pack the dedicated plug adapter at all, making it a great option for travelling light.

It’ll give you 20 minutes of full-power styling time and it charges in under two hours. All in all, it’s the best travel straightener we’ve tested.

This straightener is part of Nicky Clarke’s line of infrared tools designed to minimise styling damage. It’s hard to know how well this technology works, but we found that it did leave hair shiny and not dried-out. It’s a very effective straightener, although we used a high heat setting to get results.

Design-wise, there’s little to criticise, although we did take issue with the button placement. And there’s quite a lot to like.

It’s a lightweight styler with a long cord with a swivel setting and it comes with a heatproof mat. The titanium plates are a little wider than average at 1.5 inches and the straightener has a choice of ten heat settings, ranging from 120-230°C. It heats up quickly as well: it just takes 50 seconds to get to the highest setting, and the temperature is clearly shown on the LED display.

The Glamoriser Blue is a Bluetooth-enabled hair straightener, and the world’s first. Yet even without the smart features, the Glamoriser is an impressive tool. It has a salon-quality look and the results to go with it. The tongs don’t need to pass over the same section of hair multiple times to be effective and the entire motion is smooth, and won’t snag your locks.

The Glamoriser Blue has a wide temperature range: from 80°C to 235°C. You can, however, set the upper and lower limits through the Glamoriser app (free, for iOS and Android) so that the tool never gets hotter than you need it to.

The app also lets you set up a profile for your hair type. You indicate your hair thickness and the types of treatments you’ve had (for example, if your hair is coloured, highlighted or relaxed) and it’ll suggest a straightening temperature.

Best of all, the smart functionality means you need never again worry about whether or not you’ve switched off your straighteners.

The NuMe Megastar is one of the most effective hair straighteners around. It’s a good option if you’re looking for perfectly straight hair. It’ll allow you to personalise your heat setting, with options from 190°F to 450°F (88-232°C), in increments of 20 degrees. It heats up quickly and it’s got some great features, as well, including a large, LED temperature display and floating, tourmaline ceramic plates with genuine give.

Although it has a US plug, it has dual voltage (110-240V), so it can be used internationally with an ordinary adaptor. Our only issues with it relate to the heat it produces: it’s easy to be tempted to put the temperature on max every time for quick results, which could damage your hair. There’s also no lock and it doesn’t come with any heatproof accessories.

Revamp’s Progloss Steamcare straightener has an understated design with a matt silicone coating, a 3m lead and swivel setting. 

It has a host of features to protect damaged or delicate hair, including a range of temperature options from 150°C-230°C, floating plates, ionising technology and, of course, steam jets.

The straighteners produce only a small amount of steam but it makes a real difference to results, allowing for one-pass styling at a lower temperature.

The GHD Gold Professional Styler is a simple but powerful hair straightener that not only styles your hair quickly, but minimises styling damage.

It has a sensor in each of its plates, part of its “dual-zone technology”, to ensure the temperature is always at a constant 185°C or 365°F – which is why you won’t see any dials or displays on this device. The preset temperature takes out the guesswork involved in identifying the ideal heat setting for your hair.

The GHD Gold only takes 25 seconds to heat up and styles hair quickly and efficiently, making it perfect for the morning routine pre-work or school, for nights out or while travelling (it offers universal voltage).

The price point for the GHD Gold is rather high, but it’s justifiable given that it produces sleek, shiny and lasting results while helping to minimise hair damage. The GHD Gold is an investment in comparison to budget straighteners that may damage your hair in the long run.

The Elegance 235 from BaByliss is an affordable straightener that produces a great sleek finish that should last throughout the day. It comes in a striking colour, and is compact enough to be a great styling tool for travelling. 

The price saving does come with a few sacrifices. There aren’t as many heat settings as on more expensive straighteners, or a locking mechanism, and if you want to use the device to curl your hair, it isn’t the easiest thing to master. 

However, for the price you’re still getting a good straightener that does what it claims. It should last reasonably well over time, and best of all it doesn’t look or feel cheap, despite heavily undercutting rivals.