Top 5 Best Tourmaline Curling Iron Reviews

You’re savvy enough to know that tourmaline is a gal’s best friend when it comes to hair appliances.

And girl, you would be right.

While ceramic or titanium are the base material for any good curling iron, tourmaline is the secret ingredient added into the mix to give your locks extra shine and eliminate static and frizz once and for all.

So let’s not waste anymore time and get down to my picks for the best tourmaline curling iron for smooth, gorgeous curls.

Best Tourmaline Curling Iron Reviews

CHI Ceramic Tourmaline 1″ Curling Iron

The CHI Ceramic Tourmaline 1” Curling Iron has a neat, sleek design, and comes in the classic CHI black and gold color combination.

It has a spring clamp to hold your locks against the barrel, but is also available as a simple wand without the clip.

The barrel has a very smooth ceramic surface for easy gliding. Interestingly, the clamp isn’t all that tight, unlike most clamp irons. It takes a bit of getting used to, but it’s less likely to leave any creases and makes wrapping strands around the barrel smoother.

This iron does produce a great amount of heat, and you may end up burning your skin if you’re not careful while handling the tool.

Fully adjustable digital heat settings from 240°F up to 410°F is suitable for most hair types. 

Beautiful, shiny curls are pretty easy to create, and more importantly, they last up to a few days if you don’t wash your hair. 

One nice thing about the iron is that it has a good-size cool tip to hang onto while styling. It’s always useful to be able to hold onto both ends of an iron to keep it steady in one position.

It also has a nice long 9’ swivel cord.

One thing that I don’t care too much for is the black-colored power and temperature control buttons. It makes it a bit difficult to tell which is which against a black handle. 

Apart from this, it’s a great iron that’s gentle on your hair and styles like a pro.

INFINITIPRO BY CONAIR Nano Tourmaline Ceramic Curling Iron

Conair is a well-known and trusted company when it comes to styling tools. The InfinitiPro line is its range of products for professionals.

The InfinitiPro Nano Tourmaline Ceramic Curling Iron is available in four different sizes ranging from ¾” to 1 ½” – which means you can get everything from tight ribbon curls to loose beachy waves. 

It comes with a spring clamp to hold hair against the barrel, and the surface is quite smooth.

The curler uses nanotechnology to combine tiny particles of silver, ceramic and tourmaline to produce negative ions, which help fight frizz, and smooths the cuticle layer down for shine.

There are 5 preset temperature options up to a maximum of 400°F, though the lowest setting is “Power”, so it’s not clear what the lowest temperature actually is. An LED light next to each setting indicates which temperature you have it set to.

One thing to note is that the heated rod is coated with ceramic – as opposed to being solid ceramic – which means the coating can wear off with time. This is not ideal as it has the potential to form hot spots where the coating has worn off, leaving you with uneven heat and possible damage to your strands. 

For a budget curling iron, this one is a bit hit or miss. It heats up very quickly and does create nice curls, but it sometimes snags and pulls on hair, and in some cases even dies a premature death.

On the plus side, it comes with a bonus heat protective cover that you can put over the barrel without waiting for it to cool down before putting it away.

INFINITIPRO BY CONAIR Tourmaline Ceramic Curling Wand

The InfinitiPro by Conair Tourmaline Ceramic Curling Wand is a tapered wand that’s skinny at the tip and wider at the base. 

Its barrel is ½” at its minimum diameter and 1” at its widest. If you want looser waves or curls, it’s also available in a larger width.

As a clipless wand, you have to wrap hair around the rod and hold it against the heated surface with your free hand. The benefit of not having a clamp is that you won’t get any kinks or dents in your strands where a clamp would normally press against.

(Indeed, if you’re not already aware, a tapered wand like this is perfect for creating beautiful, natural-looking beach waves.)

It has a very quick heat up – only 30 seconds – and the ceramic content in the barrel maintains a constant heat. Plus, the blended tourmaline’s ionic technology gives hair a nice sheen and helps control frizz. 

Like the Nano Tourmaline Ceramic Curling iron, this one also has 5 heat settings, the highest being 400°F.

Since you have to hold hair against the barrel with your hand, there is a chance that your fingers may end up touching the hot surface of the wand and getting burnt.

It does come with an insulated thermal glove to help protect against burns, but it’s only a flimsy lefty 3-finger glove. For better protection, I’d recommend getting a full 5-finger heat-resistant glove.

For casual beach waves, the InfinitiPro tapered wand is easy to use and gentle on the hair. You’ll be hard pressed to find a better iron for the price.

INFINITIPRO BY CONAIR Curl Secret

The InfinitiPro by Conair Curl Secret is an automatic curling iron.

This means that the tool has a curling chamber that automatically draws hair in, so you don’t have to manually wrap your hair around the barrel yourself. 

To use, take a small section of hair near the top and place it inside the chamber. When you press it closed, it automatically sucks the hair into the curling chamber and wraps it around the heated rod. 

You’ll hear intermittent beeps while it’s working, and then 4 beeps in quick succession to notify you that it’s ready to release.

I love the fact that because this iron is automatic, it largely reduces the amount of effort required in rolling hair and makes styling a breeze.

Now, I can get beautiful curls without having sore arms by the end of it!

This tool also comes with an built-in safety mechanism – if you try to take too large a section, it won’t get sucked into the chamber.

It also comes with a chamber cleaning tool to rid the barrel of product residue and buildup so that it works optimally at all times. 

On the downside, there are only 2 heat settings to choose from – the maximum temperature is 400°F. 3 timer settings (8, 10, or 12 seconds) gives you the option for looser or tighter curls though. 

You’ll find some complaints that the Curl Secret pulls or catches and breaks hair, but my experience has been fairly smooth with it.

As with any new appliance, there’s a bit of trial and error in the beginning before getting the hang of how to use it. But once you do, it’s a real time-saver to get a full head of curls.

Bed Head Curlipops Curling Wand

The Bed Head Curlipops Curling Wand is a 1” cylindrical clipless wand, in a quirky orange and silver color combo.

This wand is also available in several other barrel sizes, like ¾” and 1 ½”, and also in other variants like a spiral curling wand for spiral curls, and a bubble wand for tousled waves.

Since there’s no clamp, it is fairly easy to learn and use. It styles without any creases or crimps; giving you shiny, effortless, long lasting curls.

The Curlipops heats up fast, and the tip remains cool so it is easy to grip. It feels strong and sturdy in its build. 

The one thing that makes it less than ideal is that there’s no option for adjusting the heat. The single temperature of around 400°F does get plenty hot, so just be sure your locks can take the heat.

For this reason, it’s actually a really great wand for stubborn, style-resistant hair types (like coarse stick-straight Asian tresses or the like). You can get fun beach waves without a lot of fuss or a ton of time.

It also comes with a protective glove to save your skin from burns while you are using this tool.

What Is Tourmaline?

Tourmaline is a semi-precious gemstone, typically mined in Brazil, as well as parts of Africa and Asia.

It comes in many different colors, and is commonly used in jewellery. It is also incorporated into thermometers, and has become popular for amplifying the production of negative ions in heated hair appliances.

Benefits of Tourmaline in Heat Styling

Boosts Negative Ion Production 

Dry hair usually contains an abundance of positive ions, which makes it frizzy and unruly.

When tourmaline is heated, it produces negative ions. These negative ions help neutralize frizzy hair’s positive ions, closing the cuticle layer down to keep moisture in your strands.

The effect enhances shine, making your locks look healthier and smoother.

Increases Far Infrared Heat 

When tourmaline is ground to a very fine powder, its surface area is increased. This allows it to produce a greater amount of far infrared heat.

Far infrared heat enters deeper into the hair shaft, and uniformly heats the strands from inside out. It is also gentler on the hair than direct heat.

With far infrared, you can achieve better results with a lower temperature. This helps reduce the potential for heat damage while still allowing you to style effectively.

How It Works

In manufacturing flat irons and curling irons, tourmaline is usually crushed into a fine powder and commonly blended with ceramic.

Mixing tourmaline into ceramic like this boosts ceramic’s natural infrared heating and negative ion generation to higher levels.

Together, this technology gently steams your locks, instead of applying direct heat. In this way, moisture is sealed within the cuticle, leaving strong, shiny and nourished hair.

Ceramic also maintains a constant temperature and evenly distributes it throughout the barrel surface for safer styling. 

Is Tourmaline Ceramic Better Than Ceramic? 

As with most things in life, it depends.

There are a couple of things to consider when it comes to ceramic and tourmaline technology.

For one thing, there’s a difference between solid ceramic rods and ceramic-coated barrels.

Solid ceramic is ideal because the entire barrel, including the heating element, is composed of the same material. This ensures totally even heat distribution throughout without the risk of hot spots forming.

Tourmaline ceramic is normally a layer of coating over a barrel that may have metal underneath. In this case, you’ll get all the shine-inducing, frizz-reducing benefits of tourmaline blended into ceramic as long as the coating doesn’t wear or chip off.

You’ll also find ceramic-coated curling irons out there too, without tourmaline mixed in.

For optimal results and longevity, it’s best to get a solid ceramic curling iron. However, it’s not always easy to know whether a curling iron is made of pure ceramic or only coated in ceramic. For this reason, a tourmaline ceramic iron is usually your best pick.

Bottom Line 

While any of the 5 irons above are great choices, there are two that are my particular favorites.

In the wands category, my pick for the best tourmaline hair curler is the INFINITIPRO BY CONAIR Tourmaline Ceramic Wand.

It’s the wand I usually grab for quick beach waves and touch ups because it’s lightweight, heats up quickly, and gives me easy, natural-looking waves without much effort.

For more defined, glamour curls, I really like the CHI Ceramic Tourmaline 1” Curling Iron. It’s extra smooth barrel glides like butter, and creates curls that last for days.