My first pair of straighteners cost £7.99 from my nan’s catalogue and weighed about the same as I do. I used them to do my hair when I went to Wembley to see Madonna. Several tours and decades later, I went to see her in Antwerp, and left my GHD Unplugged travel straighteners in an Airbnb. I was aghast when I came to replace them and found they cost £309. When did hair straighteners – a staple for so many British women – become so ridiculously expensive?
Not for the first time, I blame James Dyson. He broke the £150 barrier with his Corrale straighteners (which I enthusiastically and hypocritically use at home), and other brands followed suit – if not quite to the same extent.
