Enrapture Encode Totem Styler!

I was sent the Enrapture Totem Styler quite a while ago now and due to tragic events in August, I didn’t get around to posting about it, until now as I’ve been catching up on things ever since.

I love curls and I am so glad they’re well and truly back in ‘fashion’; I get instantly drawn to photographs of celebrities who have gorgeous curly hair (both natural or styled, and loose or tight), as you’ll see in my upcoming “hair do’s” post.

However I also love having curls in my own hair, I love the all over effect of them, but also the extra movement and body that they create. The problem with this is that I can never fully get them to look how I want them to as quite frankly, I am crap at it. I struggle to section my hair adequately for the most part, but this is something that will not be solved by any hair styler, so anything that makes the rest of it easier is always very welcome on my dressing table.

The totem styler allows a huge amount of flexibility it allows when in use and I will explain why:

Firstly, it has a little ‘tong’ that can be used to secure the bottom of hair whilst I curl the rest of it... I find this useful because longer ones can get in the way, so this one is great for me. I also like that when I am curling in this way, the (long) cord easily swivels around so that I don’t risk getting in a tangled mess, or worse, burning the cord itself!!

It can also be used as a wand, just wrapping hair around the barrel manually and hold it in place to create curls. I find that I do this at the back of my hair as it makes it slightly easier than me trying to place the hair under the tong at a funny angle (cack-handed, remember) and risk even more injury.

This leads me to point out that I do still have tendencies to burn myself using both techniques, and say that I do actually need to use my heat resistant glove from my Babyliss wand when styling. If Enrapture were to include a glove for fellow cack handed people this would make this styler absolutely perfect (and if you don’t need a glove, you can always pass it onto people who do... or start a Michael Jackson tribute act).

Both of these different ways of using it are also made easier by the addition of a built in rest which allows me to put the styler down very easily and without having to mess around to get an angle in which it doesn’t touch anything that it could burn. This is accompanied with a heatproof pouch that gives double the heat protection to my dressing table, so I’m confident that I won’t ruin anything in the process of curling my hair.

The pouch also means that I can put the styler away straight away which is very useful indeed, especially if you’re planning on packing it up and taking it away with you after using. Another ‘design feature’ I like is the the on/off control and that is a proper switch, as my Babyliss wand is kind of a recessed button that gets turned off whilst in use ALL the time – annoying, so thank you Enrapture, it really is the small things that make a difference!

The Totem Styler also has adjustable heat settings that relate to different sections of the barrel and work independently, meaning that you can get a variety of finishes by changing the heat settings in the different parts of the barrel... for instance 1 would be a lower heat setting, giving a looser curl... and 3 would be hotter, and would give a tighter curl – and you can set these to whichever part of the barrel suits how you want your hair to be – e.g. looser at the ends. This is what sets the Totem Styler apart from any other I have used as it gives you more control over what result you gain from using it – fab!

The curls I went for in my photo are done at a setting of 2 mostly and a few at 1 as I didn’t want the curls to be too tight on this occasion (I’m growing out some layers that were cut too short, that would look a bit odd if curled tightly) and also didn’t have much time to spend on it so this is a look that took me about 15 minutes... and these were at the end of the night, with no products used other than Moroccanoil and a spritz of hairspray!

The curls had dropped, but I expected this due to the lack of styling products used and think that with a bit of mousse, or L’Oreal Professionel ‘Pli’ (post coming soon on this) they would stay in for an even longer time.

As I already own this now, I’d happily buy this as a gift for somebody as I know that it’s well built and delivers great results (especially when used by somebody other than me, ha) and whilst not the cheapest curling wand on the market, is worth the little extra, in my opinion!

Available from Argos, Boots and Debenhams, for £74.99

Sorry for the lengthy review. x