Skip to content

Curly Hair & Damaged Ego Exposed As Hair Dryer Explodes

  • by
Hair Dryer Break Down

Curly hair may not be high on the list of things to worry about in life – unless of course you are one of those women whose hair has a life of its own and the hair dryer has broken.

Hair Dryer Break Down
Bad Hair Day

When my hair dryer exploded yesterday, I had visions of having to go out in public with honest hair. Curly hair to be precise. That is not something I have done since I escaped the clutches of my mother. She always insisted that people only made fun of the gold frizz framing my tear-stained face because they were jealous.

I bought into that notion up until the age of seven when I became suspicious of this alleged jealousy. Why would anyone with beautiful sleek pigtail covet a head of hair that always appeared to be arguing with itself? Why would a little girl who could toss her hair around at will and casually flick it over her shoulder, want hair that just wobbled? Hair that grows outwards rather than downwards is never good news. Why would anyone want curly hair?

My life may have been easier if we’d had a hair dryer that went above 10 watts to actually dry hair rather than just  breathe on it gently.

Curly Hair Bites the Dust In Canada

Life change dramatically for me when I went to North America at 19 and discovered hair dryers that could blow your head off. Enter sleek, manageable hair for the first time in nearly 20 years. I loved it. Curly hair bit the dust. Once my hair looked like hair rather than a rusty pan scourer, I even started to like the color that had drawn incessant bullying in my younger years.

However, with relief comes paranoia. What if my hair dyer explodes half way through drying? What if I have to go out to buy a new one with half my hair looking socially acceptable and the other half as if it wants me to join a circus?

Hair-dryer
My honest hair – not seen very often since GHDs came along

To combat this ceaseless worry, I have always kept a second hairdryer as backup along with a selection of hats in case the backup lets me down as well. And this system has worked well for 38 years. My hair has not had its own way in all that time and has been forced, on a daily basis, to lie about its true nature.

It all worked well until yesterday when my current hair dryer exploded in my hand. When I say exploded, I mean it went phut and flashed orange before emitting a puff of smoke. Perhaps ‘exploded’ is a little dramatic. As the smoke dissipated, it dawned on my that for the first time in 38 years, I did not have a back up hair dryer in the house. I immediately went into OMG! mode. I did consider calling the emergency services but instead screamed for my husband to come upstairs and rescue me from the shame of honest hair.

Curly Hair

He didn’t get it; he just shrugged when I said the hair dryer had exploded. He commented that it couldn’t have exploded that much as it was still in one piece. I picked it up and frantically flicked the on/off switch to show him that it had indeed exploded somewhere inside because it wouldn’t work. Thankfully, the room still smelt of hair dryer smoke and he finally agreed that yes, it had exploded and could he please now get back to the World Cup news. I would like to point out here that my husband has no use for a hair dryer and does not understand their vital importance in life.

So I then hid indoors until my hair air-dried and I was able to use my GHDs to wrestle my hair into submission. We then went into town to wander the bookshops, as we do on a Saturday, and,  get a new hairdryer. Unfortunately, my attention got drawn away from the hair issue by the weather and the resulting empty beach. I could see the sea from the main street and the heavy skies above made me think camera rather than hair dryer. So that is where I went – down to the people-free, rain spattered beach where I lost track of time photographing waves (with my hoody over my precious smooth hair of course!). By the time I got tired of that, the shops were all closed.

Currly hair
I blame the photogenic seascape for sidetracking me that day.

Power Cord As Curly As My Hair!

The hair dryer situation didn’t enter my head again until this morning when I stepped out of the shower. I screamed. My husband shot up the stairs in response and I proceeded to explain why it was his fault that I forgot to buy a hairdryer yesterday. It wasn’t a very robust argument. We then sat down to study the exploded hair dryer. Since I first got it 18 months ago, the power cord has been a pain.

Curly hair

It has become more and more twisted despite frequently hanging it up all day to unwind. We decided that the constant twisting had broken the wires where they enter the handle and it was this that caused the ‘explosion’. So fix it then, I said, you know about wires. My husband pointed out that the hair dryer is a sealed unit with no screws anywhere.

So I shut him in the dining room with the hair dryer and his tool box and asked him not to come out until it was fixed. I hinted that I would probably have to report him to the local council for not being committed to keeping landfill to a minimum if he didn’t fix the hair dryer.

Hair Dryer lead

Meanwhile, I began to research the problem of twisted hair dryer leads on Google and found that I am not the only person frustrated by this problem.

I studied the lead on my GHDs, which never twists, and found it rotates from the handle.

Hair Dryer

This swivel action stops the lead from twisting as you constantly turn it this way and that around your head day after day. So why don’t hair dryers have that feature? Particularly as twisted wires lead to broken wires and explosions that ultimately lead to curly hair.

During all my Googling, I discovered a hair dryer on Amazon called the Valera Professional Swiss Nano 6000. It has a cable called a Rotocord that is designed to combat the problem of twisted and tangled power cords.

Just as I was about to release my husband from the dining room, I heard the familiar sound of my hair dryer working once again. He wasn’t very impressed when I said I didn’t actually want the hair dryer anymore because it scared me and wouldn’t it be better if we just spent £36 on this lovely Swiss one that wouldn’t explode?

Anyway, once I had retrieved the hair dryer from the light fixture where it got caught as my husband threw it up in the air in frustration, I thought I would keep it until I save up for the more sensible one with a rotating cord.Then I went and thanked my husband for his endeavors and as a little show of appreciation, I promised to keep quiet during weekend sports on TV and not ask if I can watch mindless TV on catch-up instead.

The Valera Professional Swiss Nano 6000 (with the much safer power cord situation) has only one review on Amazon so far but, it is a glowing one.

There is another option that could work quite well since the cord is already curly and saves all the hassle of fighting with a straight one.

My plan is to give my husband a list of Health & Safety reasons as to why we should buy the Valera, without criticising the excellent job he did of fixing our unfixable exploding hair dryer and covering the join with a wodge of insulation tape. I will let you know what the new hair dryer is like because I am pretty sure I will have one sooner rather than later.

5 thoughts on “Curly Hair & Damaged Ego Exposed As Hair Dryer Explodes”

  1. No! Not the hair straighteners! Now that is SERIOUS! I would have crawled into the cupboard under the stairs and stayed there if it had been me. If that ever happens, you will hear my screams across the Atlantic! Thank you so much for reading and commenting. Have a great weekend – and that’s to Kimberly too. It’s great that you guys do this.

  2. Ha! Love the term ‘honest hair’! I can’t imagine living with my honest hair, a limp, stringy collection of not so blonde strands. I’ve had a few dryers commit to the afterlife in my time and it’s not a good experience. Best to take your lead and buy a back-up! Thanks for joining us, we’re glad to have you!
    Kimberly

    1. Hi Kimberly – thanks for reading! It’s amazing how women can really relate to the devastating effect of a broken hair-dryer. Being forced out into public with no make-up and frizzy hair is a recurring nightmare. Lol!

  3. Oh lord! I feel your pain. My hair straightener died a month back with half a head done! I don’t have curly hair per se as much as wavy where I don’t want it to be. I love your pic of au naturel but I know what you mean. I feel more put together when my hair is straight.

    1. Hi Elena, sorry, the comment above about the hair straighteners was meant for you – but I put it in the wrong box! Spot the professional – Ha Ha! Thanks again.

Comments are closed.

Don`t copy text!