Mara Leighton/Business Insider
A slightly less cinematic makeover than Mia Thermopolis of "The Princess Diaries." Left: My natural hair after a brushing. Right: My hair ten minutes later, right after using T3's Hair Rollers.
- I tried the T3's Volumizing Hair Rollers ($99) as a fast, easy way to get a blowout look without the time commitment, salon expense, or heat damage.
- Celebrity hairstylist Laura Polko used these hair rollers to create Gigi Hadid's 2018 Met Gala look, so I asked her to walk me through how she did it before attempting to follow the steps.
- Overall, even with some amateur mistakes made, the rollers gave me incredible body, shine, and curl in 10 minutes.
- Like the company's $160 Bodywaver Curling Iron, the hot rollers are a good cheat code to getting that blowout look without the hassle.
For the last year, T3's Bodywaver Curling Iron has been my cheat code to getting a salon blowout look. That's because I can achieve it without either dropping the $50 per visit or needing the dexterity to wield a round brush and blow dryer simultaneously at home.
The Bodywaver's success led me to try the company's Volumizing Hair Rollers - which are slightly cheaper ($99.99 compared to $160) and even faster to use.
My memories of rollers before this experiment were restricted to childhood memories of going to sleep with tiny, spongy noodles clipped into my damp hair and waking up to a child star's Hollywood perm. But, spoiler alert: These aren't your mom's or your grandma's rollers. In the end, I came away impressed. Despite a few amateur mistakes, I had big, shiny curls in exchange for 10 minutes of doing basically nothing.
Everything you need to know about the Hair Rollers themselves
The Hair Rollers ($99.99) come in a travel- and storage-friendly set with eight rollers covered in velvet and eight crease-free clips to hold the rollers in place. Four of the rollers are 1.75-inches and four are 1.5-inches - the latter creating soft waves, and the former creating those big, volumized waves most often attached to Disney's animated princesses. They have two heat settings to cater to different hair types, and T3's signature HeatCore technology to ensure a balanced heat transfer so you aren't frying one area and missing another. After an hour, they'll also turn off automatically.
To figure out how to get the best possible results, I interviewed celebrity hairstylist Lauren Polko, who used the T3 hair rollers to create Gigi Hadid's 2018 Met Gala look, to learn her tricks of the trade. Then, I tried to mimic it at home.
How to get the best results from T3 Hot Rollers - according to a celebrity hairstylist:
According to Polko, this is the step-by-step process she uses on her clients:
- Start with hair that's been dried with a volumizing spray. There's no need to do a proper blowout, a rough dry works just fine.
- Concentrate on the top section. Start on the sides (read: near your temples) with the larger rollers, combing the hair out flat and straight on the roller and making sure the ends are smooth. Roll towards the head and clip in place.
- From temple to temple, use about three-four rollers in rows of roughly 1.5-inch sections each directed straight back until you've hit below the crown of the head using the same technique as before.
- Let sit for 10 minutes minimum, then give a spritz of light hairspray and take down.
- Shake out and use your hands and fingers to move into place.
As far as mistakes to avoid, Polko says it's really all about not using too much product. "You don't want hair heavy ... or stiff with strong-hold hairspray," she cautions. You'll also want to make sure the ends are fully rolled around the roller, or they'll wind up limp or bent.
My Experience using the T3 Volumizing Rollers at home:
Mara Leighton/Business Insider
Typically, I can wrap my full head of thick, long hair in just eight rollers.
At home, after air-drying my hair with a little bit of heat-protecting spray, I plugged in the T3 device. During the couple of minutes it took to heat up, I brushed my hair smooth. Once ready, I popped out the rollers, rolled my hair into them (taking special care to keep the ends smooth), clipped them in place, and got ready for the rest of my day while they did their work. Ten minutes after I clipped the last roller in, I lightly sprayed hairspray over them and unrolled each one, gently twirling the curls into a more natural, cohesive shape as I did it. And that's about it.
I still have to finesse my form at the crown of my head because I failed to fully heed Polko's advice on the first try, but the above took me 10 minutes (of sitting with rollers in my hair) in the morning.
The few things I learned upfront are to start rolling in the middle of your hair if you have layers to avoid chunks falling out, and that while the rims are insulated, they're still hot to the touch - not prohibitively so, but you may want to use a glove if you're sensitive or they've been roasting in their cradle for awhile.
Lastly, I have a thick mass of hair. Hairstylists tend to call in reinforcements when tasked with cutting it down to a human shape. But, in the subsequent trials I did, I could usually do my full head of hair with just these eight rollers. If I'm being precise, I may need to reuse one or two. Even then, it still amounts to only 20 minutes of hands-off styling in total.
It'll take some time before the motion of rolling the Hot Rollers becomes natural, but even with some awkwardness, the finished result was great, and well-worth 10 minutes of prep. I did my makeup, got changed, and made my coffee while they were in. And it took me a fraction of the time - and much less heat damage - to achieve this look than using a hot tool.
The bottom line
All in all, I loved how easy and effective these rollers were. If you're looking for a lustrous, old-school-glamour blowout in ten minutes and minimal exposure to heat damage - and can justify $100 upfront instead of ongoing payments to a salon - I recommend checking these out for yourself. And while I hope my form would improve with continued use, it's worth saying these hot rollers can withstand some amateur mistakes and still deliver great body, shine, and big, bouncy curls. As time passes and your technique becomes more agile, you should theoretically get even better, faster, more exact results.
T3 Volumizing Hot Rollers, available at Nordstrom, Ulta, Sephora, and Amazon, from $99.99
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