Panasonic Nanoe Hair Straightener (EH-HS95-K) Review

These are the photoceramic plates up close. As you can see, the design is on the bulkier side. Unlike most irons of today, there are plenty of crevices on the side because if I understand correctly, it’s through these crevices that Nanoe can be injected to the hair.

The controls are on the side of the iron. There is a power button and buttons to control the temperature. I own three straightening irons (including this), a mermaid crimper, a straightening brush, and a curling iron as of now, and I will be honest that this is not the most convenient configuration to use. This configuration means that you have to be conscious to not keep on touching these buttons while using the iron because you may accidentally switch the iron off or change the temperature. Or to rephrase, I have accidentally switched this off by accident while using this several times coz I held onto the iron too tightly hahaha.

My other irons have the temperature settings are in dial format, and the on and off switch is a flip switch. So even if I hold on to the iron tightly, there’s no way for me to accidentally shut off the iron while using those.

But to be fair, I super liked the lock because my other straighteners don’t have locks and it can be quite annoying to tame them when I’m traveling. I don’t want to have to worry about making sure that the iron has plenty of things surrounding it so it doesn’t pry loose when in my luggage.

I like that they have the model and the electrical information printed in big text in the inside of the iron. It can be quite difficult to look at the plug, especially if you’re traveling and do not have access to the box to see the specifications.

I use the iron at 150 degrees Celsius and proceed to straighten my hair. Since I knew it was gonna make sizzling sounds, I didn’t panic. I knew my hair wasn’t getting fried, it was just the device’s noise.

I probably used 3-5 passes before I got it to this point. The plates are thankfully flat enough that they do a good job in reaaally keeping my hair in place between the plates so that something really is happening. The thing with some other straightening irons is that the blades are not perfectly flat to each other that you don’t get to “squeeze” all the hair in one swipe. What then happens is that the hair doesn’t respond immediately, you’ll need to to several more swipes, and by the time it’s straight your hair has been exposed to heat for too long it’s already fried or on the verge of falling off. As you can see, my hair still looks like hair and is somehow still shiny even after being straightened.

I proceed to iron out the rest of my hair and see what happens.

I am pleased that even as I look at this photo, my hair still looks shiny and looks like hair. I am also happy that I was able to attain this at just 150 degrees Celsius, whereas with other irons with less perfect plates, I’d have to turn it up to 200 degrees Celsius to get the same effect in the same amount of time.

Texture wise, my hair feels soft and flexible. It doesn’t feel like a stiff, dry bunch of plant fibers. Y’all know the feeling when you iron your hair and it looks good but feels like a broom’s fibers to the touch already? I’m thankful that didn’t happen with this appliance.

And yaaay, the best part is my hair doesn’t smell burnt or fried!!! That’s all the validation I needed! Even the driest ends don’t smell burnt. My hair still smells like my hair and that really pleased me so much about this product. All my other metal tools make my hair smell burnt by the time I finish styling, so this was definitely a plus for me.

So I tried to bring out mousse so I could try to see how this would curl my hair.

I tried all the techniques people have for curling hair using straighteners but this is just too bulky for it to work.

As you can see, I only get weirdly wavy hair. I have tried doing the friction technique (like I’ll twirl the hair and then pull the iron out in a straight direction) and I have tried to use this as a hair curling iron as pictured, but I think that the plastic rims on the side of the plates just make it impossible to get a good curl. I think the curls can only be possible if the rims of the iron are also hot enough to heat the hair. But on the flipside, I didn’t hurt myself using this because even while it’s turned on, the immediate area surrounding the plates is not hot.

The next thing I did was to test it against hair that has been waved through heating. I am using my mermaid iron to get my hair to crimp. Normally, hair that has been crimped this way, at least for me, no longer cooperates to anything.

I then proceed to use the straightener. As you can see, it straightens out most of the crimp on its first pass. Yes, even I can’t believe that this is just the first pass!

The crimped part of my hair is a bit fluffier, but I’m pleased that I was able to get rid of most of the crimping without burning my hair. My hair still smelled like hair, and I didn’t have to do too many passes as this already got rid of most of the crimp immediately.

 I will not lie what if you’re looking to buy a flat iron to get both curling and straightening, this just isn’t the product for you. This is an exceptionally good straightener, but its configuration just doesn’t make it possible to get good curls. It’s too bulky and too cool on the area surrounding the hot plates that it just will not function as a curling iron any day. I also will not lie that the buttons need some time to get used to given that they’re on an area of the iron that we typically will grab onto while using the appliance.