There’s a whole generation of people out there who (cleverly) taught themselves how to curl or wave their hair using straighteners, meaning they never had a need to invest in a separate tool.

It’s a trick that’s fairly difficult to master – well, at least we think so, anyway – but there’s no denying that it’s effective. So effective, in fact, that there are a lot of professional stylists out there who opt to use straighteners to curl their clients’ hair as well as their own. 

One of the best-kept secrets about adopting this method is that it’s so much more versatile than it appears on the surface. And there’s a whole variety of different curls you can create using just a pair of straighteners – something that hairdresser Samantha Cusick has recently demonstrated in a video.

Taking to her Instagram page, Cusick used three different hair extensions – each with the same length and width – in order to show the massive difference that simply changing the angle you hold your straighteners at can have. 

The video (which can be seen above) was captioned: “Did you know the higher the angle you hold your straighteners the bouncier the curls? For beachy waves, you want to glide the styler down the hair as close to your body as possible but for bouncy curls go for a 90-degree angle.” 

As demonstrated in the short video, the first hair piece that Cusick styles is curled holding the straighteners at 0°, which works to create a loose, casual-looking wave that would be perfect for a beachy, relaxed feel. The second extension is curled holding the straighteners at a 45° angle, resulting in a tighter curl that’s ideal for creating a more defined look or for people whose hair doesn’t hold a style quite so well.

Finally, the third curl is done at a higher 90° angle, which, as you can see, styles hair into a tight, bouncy-looking curl that will turn into a salon-inspired blow-dry-esque finish when it’s done on a whole head of hair. 

Clever, right?

Main image: Getty