From the moment I turned the straighteners on, to my entire lion’s mane being pin-straight, the total time passed was a jaw-dropping 8 minutes and 46 seconds.

Now, I don’t have coily curls, but I do have a head of curly, unbearably frizzy yet borderline wavy hair which falls to the middle of my back when it’s fully straight. On the curl spectrum, they’re somewhere between 2a and 3c, depending on what products I use.

Throughout my teenage years, you wouldn’t see me outside of my home without straightened hair. In fact, you might not even see me in my home without it. As such, I know exactly how much time I used to leave to ensure it would be done before going out and about: 40-50 minutes from being wet, and around 30-35 minutes when dry – depending on how tired my arms were feeling.

Nevertheless, when running my hand over the back of my head – I’d always immediately feel an alarming sense of raised and frizzy follicles, almost like a loaf of dough left to prove, getting larger with every passing second. Even with the extra-wide ghds, this was unavoidable unless I washed, blow-dried, and applied a hefty amount of heat-protecting and smoothing product to my hair beforehand.

With the ghd Chronos straighteners, I can firmly state that those days are gone (though I will, of course, continue to use heat protectant). Not only was I able to achieve a head of dead-straight hair without the dead-ends in under 10 minutes, but it seems to have lasted extremely well. Nowadays, I only tend to run the straighteners briefly over my hair after blow-drying – but with the quick-heat up and mystical smoothing powers of the Chronos, I can see myself making the almost non-effort to properly ‘do’ my hair before leaving the house.

I found it intriguing that these don’t sound like your typical straighteners. Rather than producing a loud clanging when the ceramic bars hit one another as well as a faint sizzling noise, the Chronos merely produces a faint electrical hum next to the ear and a quiet clap when pressed together.

It doesn’t feel like it’s burning your hair in the slightest and remains cool enough to run your hands through up until roughly the 10th minute of use. Though the ceramic plates don’t feel damaging, I definitely noticed a similar amount of breakage and hair loss throughout the process as I do with my usual straighteners.

While I’m used to ferrying around the extra-wide ghds, I look forward to the ease of taking these lightweight and miraculously powerful straighteners on trips both long and short. As I write this review, I’m continually running my hand along the back of my head – no sourdough frizz!