What Are The Best Hair Treatments to Straightening in 2024?

Lucky are the girls born with poker-straight hair, but for the rest of us girlies, straightening can come to the rescue on the days we feel like styling our tresses. The real problem lies elsewhere — choosing the best hair straightening solution.

We drew up a guide on the different hair straightening methods, along with their pros and cons so that you can make an informed choice. Let’s get started.

To get visibly straight hair, you need to choose a straightening method that would work the best for your hair type. You also need to consider the outcome you expect from straightening treatments — permanent (or we should say semi-permanent) solutions are starkly different from temporary fixes. Instead of doing the research, check out our guide below.

Types of Hair Straightening Options

You’d be spoiled for choice when it comes to hair straightening methods. But, the sheer variety can be confusing.

So here are the good and the bad of common hair straightening methods for you. Take your pick wisely.

Heat-based Straightening Methods

You can temporarily straighten your hair with the help of heat styling tools. When done the right way, heat-based hair straightening can give you great results and can last till the next wash.

There are multiple heat-based hair straightening options you can choose from, including:

Flat Iron

This is a heat-styling tool that’s great for taming frizzy hair. It works by breaking the hydrogen bonds in your hair to give it a straighter appearance but environmental factors like humidity can affect the effect it has. You can use it anywhere, anytime.

Flat iron works well on most hair types. Do remember to use a heat-protectant spray or serum before reaching for that traditional flat iron.

But if you choose NuMe’s flat irons, rest assured, you won’t need any additional products. Our flat irons are designed to give you shiny, straight hair minus the damage with infrared heat and negative ion conditioning technologies.

With infrared technology, your hair is naturally moisturized, keeps breakage at bay, and is evenly heated from the inside out. As for negative ion conditioning, no technology could have maintained hair that is equally soft and shiny while reducing static electricity like ours. The secret is in the blend of negative and positive ions in your hair, which speeds up the straightening process by breaking down water molecules.

What's to Love: Fast, convenient, easy to use

What's Not to Love: Temporary

Straightening Brushes

Also known as hot brushes, these help you straighten and untangle your hair as you comb it. Straightening brushes also work by altering the bonds in your hair temporarily to make it appear straight.

What’s to Love: Controls frizz and flyaways, adds shine, convenient

What’s Not to Love: If the hair is thick and the pores are tight, it won't achieve that poker-straight look like a flat iron would.

Blow Dry + Smoothing Serum

Lastly, you can also try to blow out your hair, followed by a smoothening serum. It’s one of the least damaging methods, barring heatless hair straightening. But, you need to invest in reliable heat styling tools to get good results.

We recommend the NuMe Signature Hair Dryer for the best results.

The device uses a combination of infrared heat and negative ion technology that quickly dries your hair and cuts down on the damage. Using our hair dryer also helps lock in moisture, and tame frizz. It gives you shiny hair, irrespective of your hair type. You can easily control the temperature settings to your preference and use the cool shot setting to get long-lasting results.

Don’t forget to use the NuMe Vegan Tourmaline Smoothening Set products before  your blow dry. Fortified with essential amino acids along with tourmaline powder, shea butter, argan oil, and more, the products protect your cuticles and give you strong, smooth hair.

Chemical-based Straightening Methods

If you’re looking for permanent (tsk, semi-permanent to be honest) methods of straightening your hair, you could try chemical treatments. Such treatments must be performed by a professional in a salon set-up.

You can take your pick from:

Keratin Treatment

In this treatment, your hair is coated with a keratin serum, followed by straightening with a flat iron. It gives you shiny, smooth, and nourished hair that’s poker straight.

What's to Love: Works on all hair types

What's Not to Love: Expensive

But what if you could take care of your hair and give it the keratin it needs right inside your home?

NuMe Vegan Tourmaline Hair Smoothing At Home Treatment is what you're looking for. Its natural, formaldehyde-free formula lets you improve your hair's health in the comfort of your home.

Our formula nourishes your hair deeply with plant-based keratin, which is intensely hydrating. It's enriched with tourmaline powder and vitamins to protect and moisturize your hair, giving you the frizz-free, sleek hair you've always wanted.

 

Hair Rebonding

As the name suggests, rebonding uses chemicals to break and then rebond the structure of your natural hair. Yes, it’s as harsh on your hair as it sounds, although it is the only near-permanent straightening treatment you can try. You can get a rebonding treatment done once in a blue moon, but we recommend not repeating it often.

What's to Love: Great for thick wavy, curly, or coiled hair, lasts up to 6-7 months or more.

What's Not to Love: Causes significant damage to hair, and new hair growth shows unevenness at the roots

Hair Relaxing

This chemical straightening procedure is ideal if you have curly or coiled hair and want to loosen the strands without fully straightening it. It breaks down the naturally occurring bonds in your hair to relax the strands.

Generally lye-based chemicals are used to achieve the desired effect, although you will need to use some other straightening method such as flat iron to get poker-straight hair.

What's to Love: Lasts for 2-3 months, suits wavy to curly hair

What's Not to Love: Strips your hair of natural oils and moisture, does not straighten hair fully

Japanese Straightening

This is one heck of a treatment that attempts to permanently change the bonds in your hair. It starts with an ammonium thioglycolate treatment to break the bonds, after which the hair is flat ironed with precision, and “sealed” into its new shape with a hydrogen peroxide neutralizer.

What's to Love: Suits fine hair, lasts for 6-7 months

What's Not to Love: Very lengthy process, can be extremely damaging to your hair

Heatless Remedies

You can also try heatless home remedies like flat wrapping your hair. It works great on wavy to curly hair. Other methods include continuous brushing and overnight hair banding.

What's to Love: Does not damage your hair, low-cost

What's Not to Love: Most home remedies are temporary and require an overnight waiting period to show results.

What Determines Your Hair's Reaction to Straightening?

Your hair is as unique as you are. No two women witness matching results, even if they have undergone the same hair straightening methods or treatments because of these individual differences.

The results of hair straightening are affected by different hair types and textures.

There are four hair types in the world: straight, wavy, curly, and coily. Each of these can be further subdivided into fine, medium, and thick or coarse hair, based on texture. The differences exist because the building blocks of each of these variations are unique.

That’s why straightening methods also vary widely depending on your hair type and texture.

How to Take Care of Your Hair After Straightening It

No matter which hair straightening method you choose, you need to:

• Follow Daily Maintenance Routine: Keep your hair clean, well-conditioned, and protected against heat or chemical straightening methods. Try to not mess with your hair with your fingers once you have had a treatment done.
• Use Recommended Products: You can visit the NuMe Hair Care collection to get your hands on hair serums, masks, shampoo, and conditioning treatments that provide your hair with the nourishing care it needs. We have a wide selection of vegan, cruelty-free, and trusted products for every hair type.

The Bottom Line

Transform your tresses effortlessly with our guide to the best hair straightening treatments. From flat irons to smoothening products, find the perfect solution tailored to your hair type and needs.

Keen on straightening your hair? Check out the NuMe collection to explore the best-in-class styling tools and hair care products loved by hundreds of women. Get started today!

FAQs

1. What are the best products for hair straightening?

That depends on your hair type and texture. The best products should have ingredients suitable for your hair and formulations made specially for your type.

2. What is the least damaging hair straightening treatment?

Since straightening methods work by altering the bonds in your hair, all of them cause some amount of damage. However, you can lessen the damage by choosing trusted styling tools and vegan hair care products from NuMe.

3. What is the best thing to use to straighten your hair?

If you’re looking for temporary results, go for a blow dryer or a flat iron. But keratin treatments show the best long-term results. Check out NuMe's Tourmaline Hair Smoothing Treatment for salon-like results at home.