When it comes to hair, there's nothing I love more than a bouncy blow dry. Now, I'm a firm believer that you can never beat a salon blow dry, but I'll do my damnedest to try to achieve something like it at home. I've used all manner of hair dryers, curling wands and tongs and hot brushes in the past and whilst some have come very, very close I've never been 100% satisfied with the final result.
Then I discovered the ghd Rise—which has been doing the rounds on TikTok—and haven't stopped using it since. Not only is it nice to use, but it's also a brilliant styler for adding volume and defined curls—something I can't always achieve very well with a regular hot brush, mostly because of my lack of patience.
Curling tongs help to create waves and curls, but I find that they don't give the same bounce or blow out-like longevity as the ghd rise. My hair is straight and fine and I have quite a lot of it so it's fairly easy to manage, but I find it difficult to get volume and curls to last longer than five minutes. That's where this tool excels.
ghd Rise Hot Brush Features
The ghd Rise Hot Brush has a 32mm barrel, smaller than most of my other hot brushes and slightly bigger than my curling tongs. Think of it as the result of a hot brush and curling iron having a baby.
The combination enables me to get a really tight curl, looser ones if I let them drop, and also makes it easy to get right to the root of the hair. It's completely silent too, which is a big win for me as I find the noise of a hair dryer often overstimulating.
It's really lightweight, which is great as so often heated hair tools can ache after a while when you use them. It has nylon bristles that can take a little getting used to begin with to make sure you don't tug at the hairs or get them caught. I also found that I kept turning the styler off by accident, knocking the on/off button as I styled.
ghd Rise Hot Brush results
These are my results after using the ghd Rise and letting the curls drop out to create this wave. It's brilliant for both tight-ish curls and loose waves on my hair type.
I can imagine this working really well on bob hairstyles, too. The brand says it's suitable for all lengths and works for all hair types, but I can't personally attest to that.
If you're looking for a middle ground between curling iron and hot brush that is so silent you can watch your favourite show while you style, this is the one for you. It's definitely made me more willing to style my hair at night when I really can't be bothered but know I'll thank myself the next morning.
