The mistake you're making when straightening your hair

There are a lot of misconceptions when it comes to using a heated styler. Photo / 123RF

The name Dr Tim Moore probably doesn't mean much to many of us, even if you are a fanatic when it comes to the world of beauty.

But this professor from Cambridge University is responsible for perhaps one of the most iconic hair styling products in the world — the GHD hair straightener.

Standing for 'Good Hair Day', Dr Moore says despite the bloggers and vloggers giving anyone, anywhere advice on how to style their hair — there's still a big misconception when it comes to using a styler.

Speaking to news.com.au while in Sydney recently, Dr Moore said some of the biggest mistakes not only cause damage to hair follicles — but also stops a style from lasting all day.

"There's a lot of miscommunication when it comes to temperature," Dr Moore told news.com.au.

"Your hair consists of three kinds of bonds. Putting your styler at the hottest temperature is not the key to getting your hair how you want it.

"You don't need anything above 185 degree celcius, because using anything above that creates vertical cracks along the cuticle, causing the cuticle to lift and resulting in tangles and splits.

"Trying to style your hair below 185C will often take many passes of the tool to achieve a good result, which is more drying to the hair and causes further split ends."

It should come as no surprise that styling your hair with heat can cause damage — we've all been there when it comes to cranking up the heat in the hope a style will last a little longer.

"Temperatures that break the hair bond is 200 degrees," he explained.

"The higher the temperature, it can change the colour of the hair too. These people going to 230 degrees … it's really bad news and you will cause significant damage."

Dr Moore, who joined the GHD team in 2008 and created their Research and Development lab, spends most of his time working on how to develop and change their stylers to overcome any damaging elements that feature in heat stylers available on the market.

Dr Moore, who was in Sydney last week for the launch of GHD's Platinum+ smart straightener, said even a woman with curly or frizzy hair shouldn't be turning up the temperature for a better style.

In an interview with MamaMia, he explained straightening hair of different thickness was like boiling water.

"Thick hair is like heating up 10 litres of water, as opposed to thin hair which is like heating up 1 litre of water," he said. "You don't need more temperature, but you need more energy."

And speaking of water, Dr Moore said to only use styling products on completely dry hair.

"If your hair is wet, the heated water will transform from a liquid to a gas and expand," he said. "Water trapped in the cortex will burst out of the strand and damage it."

Dr Moore said GHD's latest A$340 (NZ$372) styler was the "world's first smart straightener" and used prediction to control heat and respond to the needs of your hair.

Speaking of competitors in the market, including Dyson — who this year brought out the Supersonic hair dryer for A$500 (NZ$548) — he welcomed new competition to the ever-growing beauty technology market.

"They have brought out an interesting hair dryer," he said. "But where we lead and are different to Dyson is that we do the fundamental research into hair. While they are a good competitor, we have a strong competitive edge in terms of the scientific needs of hair."