Remington hydraluxe pro review: We tried the mist-releasing straightener that claims to be good for your hair

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Many of us rely on hair straighteners to achieve salon-worthy locks, whether it’s a poker-straight style or beachy waves. But the promise of a sleek, smooth and glossy do often comes at a price: heat damage.

While straighteners are undoubtedly seriously effective styling tools, the reason they work so well is the same reason they can cause so much harm – the high temperature of the plates temporarily resets the shape of your hair and, if you’re not careful, your tresses can be left feeling scorched, depleted of natural moisture, brittle and prone to breakage.

Thankfully, technology has come a long way and, while no heated styler can completely protect your hair, there are a select few that do their best to lessen the burden.

Having been around the beauty sphere since 1937, Remington is well known for its wide range of hair tools. The hydraluxe pro (£78.99, Amazon.co.uk) is its latest launch and features the brand’s “hydracare” technology, which it claims actively hydrates your hair as you style.

A tool that promises to protect our hair from the highest temperatures while delivering long-lasting style almost sounds too good to be true. So, to find out if it can really save our strands from being frazzled, we put it to the test.

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We made Remington’s hydraluxe pro our go-to straightener for two weeks, during which time we straightened and curled our hair most days to assess its user-friendliness, design and ability to create sleek styles. We also focused on its heat protection technology, gauging how healthy our locks looked and felt after each use.

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At first glance, the hydraluxe pro looks like any other straightener, with a glossy white finish and super smooth metallic plates that instantly look as though they’ll treat our hair well. However, unlike most models, this one features an opaque blue reservoir and spout on one side, which is where all the magic happens.

For the tool to make the most of its hydracare technology, the reservoir needs to be filled with water and Remington has made sure this is simple enough to do. Just lift the front end up and pull it towards you to lift the reservoir out, open the plug using the tab and fill it with water using the handy pipette provided. Once you’re done, replace the reservoir into the body of the straightener by pressing downwards until it clicks into place. The only snag here is that Remington recommends using filtered or distilled water and, while this might seem annoying, it serves a purpose, as regular tap water could block the tool with limescale and reduce its life span.

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The hydraluxe pro feels slightly bulkier in hand than the straightener we normally use – the ghd platinum plus (£189, Johnlewis.com) – which is likely down to the addition of the reservoir. However, it doesn’t feel much heavier and the larger size means the plates are bigger too – a boon that’s likely to cut down styling time for anyone with longer locks.

Using the straightener is simple enough, too. There are four buttons to choose from – an on/off button, separate plus and minus buttons to adjust the temperature, and one with a blue icon that activates the hydracare function when held for two seconds.

As soon as you plug in the straightener and press the on/off button, it instantly starts heating up to 170C and the temperature is shown on a digital display that seems to appear almost from nowhere on the body of the tool. However, the hydraluxe pro actually has five temperature settings, so if your hair requires a little more heat you can crank it up all the way to 230C using the plus button.

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Within a matter of seconds the tool is ready to go and, having already filled up the reservoir, so were we. We split our hair into two sections before initiating the hydracare function and again a symbol lit up on the body of the straightener to let us know it was ready to use. Remington states that the moisture mist outlet should always be facing downwards towards the end of your hair when using the hydracare mode, as otherwise your locks can be left feeling damp. So, once we made sure we were holding it in the right position, we got to work.

When the plates close onto the hair, a light mist is released from the outlet and while there is a slight noise when this happens, we didn’t find it to be too distracting. In fact, it was kind of fun.

As for the performance, we instantly noticed a difference in how sleek and shiny our hair looked after just one passing through the plates, and although it took us a bit longer than usual to finish our whole head, the results were worth it. Our typically frizzy hair was free from flyaways and felt far less dry. Plus, the look lasted all day and we only needed to touch up a few kinks the next morning. As for the tool’s claims of preventing heat damage, we can’t say for certain whether or not our locks experienced any less harm. However, our hair did look smooth, shiny and softer than ever.

The only slight niggle we had was that, because of the slightly bulkier shape of the tool, it was difficult to reach right to the roots of our hair – if you have naturally curly locks, this might prove problematic.

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While filling up the reservoir is super easy, it does take a little extra time. But the good news is that if you do tend to find yourself in a rush in the mornings, the straightener can be used without the hydracare function. We tried using the tool this way too and still had great results, but felt that our hair really benefited from the mist. So, if you’ve got a spare couple of minutes to whip out the pipette, it seems a shame not to make the most of this moisture-boosting mode.

It takes a special tool to deter us from picking up our trusty ghd platinum+, but if there’s one straightener that could tempt us, this is it. As simple as filling up your iron, the hydraluxe pro is so easy to use and we loved the novelty of topping it up and watching the mist glide across our strands.

But, more importantly, it actually works. Our hair felt nourished, looked glossy and the style lasted all day, which is a major plus point for anyone who dreads spending extra time on their tresses each morning.

While our long, bleached hair certainly reaped the benefits, we think the hydraluxe pro is best suited to those with curly locks that require higher temperatures but still want to preserve the moisture balance, or those with overly processed, damaged hair that needs a little extra TLC.