What’s the Dafni Hair Straightening Brush?
The Dafni hair straightener brush is the most sought-after hair straightening brush out there. It was the first on the market, created by an Israeli company from high quality materials. The other hair brush straighteners you see everywhere are basically a copy of the Dafni, and they use lower quality components to bring the price down (by a lot!)
So, is it really worth it?
Let’s find out.
What’s in the Box?
The Dafni has a pretty minimalistic box that features basically only the brush itself, an instruction manual and a little card labeled “How to Dafni?” which explains how to get the best results from the brush—more on that later.
The brush I got had a european-style two prong plug, but it came with a small adapter. I was told that the new units are shipping with a US cable, so no adapter is needed.
How to Get the Best Results with the Dafni?
The Dafni hair straightening brush should be used on fully dried hair for best results. Not surprisingly, I also found it works better after applying a good protein conditioner. To really get the most out of the Dafni though, what you need is a keratin hair treatment. Doing any at-home keratin treatment and then using the Dafni hair straightening brush, I was able to get the longest lasting smoothness: even when the air outside is a bit humid, my hair doesn’t get frizzy as it inevitably would—sometimes for a few days (let’s face it we all get lazy sometimes)!
The “How to Dafni?” card that you get with the brush features the following recommendations for best results:
Use only on dry brushed hair.
Brush slowly in a pulling motion.
Make sure your hair gets deep into the inner area of the brush.
All solid advice.
How to Operate the Dafni?
Unlike the other hair brush straightener, the Dafni hair brush straightener only has one button to press — so no temperature selection. You press and hold the button for a couple seconds to power it on and the four LED lights that circle the button start flashing RED to let you know that it’s heating up. When the LEDs light up a solid GREEN, you know that it’s ready to use. The process is VERY FAST. I’d say you get a green light in less than 10 seconds.
The Dafni heats up to 365 degrees Fahrenheit, which I think strikes the perfect balance between straightening capability vs the damage it can do to your hair. Another reason to apply a keratin treatment before using any type of straightener is that the keratin seems to create a “shield” around the hair that doesn’t allow it to dry out and break while you’re straightening it.
So, is the Dafni Hair Straightening Brush Any Good?
Like with any straightener, I always get the best results if I section out my hair. With the Dafni, an individual strand will take around 1-2 brush strokes before it’s straight to the point where I’m happy with it. This is a marked improvement over the other hair brush straighteners which usually took a few extra strokes to get to the same level of smoothness.
With the Dafni hair brush straighter, I also had no trouble getting past the bumpy spots around the top of my head, quickly. With this hair straightening brush, all you have to do is brush the back of your head a few times, and your hair will not get those creases that you get with a flat iron.
The bristles on the Dafni hair straightener are also better designed than the other hair brush straighteners: I felt the hair brushed smoothly at tougher angles such as when trying to reach the top part of the back of my head.
My hair was gliding through the bristles very easily, while I felt like the bristles on the other hair straightening brushes caused my hair to get snagged sometimes, especially as the red tips of the bristles kinda “lifted” a little bit with use. No such problem with the Dafni, though, as its bristles are all “one piece”.
Also, unlike the other hair brush straighteners, since the Dafni hair straightener brush features only one button which is located in the middle of the handle, rather than on the side, so you don’t risk hitting it by accident. With the other hair brush straighteners, I shut off or changed the temperature on the straightener a few times by accidentally pressing the buttons on the sides. Not a huge deal, but this definitely makes the Dafni feel like a more refined product.
In Conclusion
The Dafni is almost four times as expensive as the generic hair brush straighteners out there, so is it really worth it?
In my opinion, if you are going to be using the hair brush straightener to “refresh” hair that was straightened with a flat iron, or you’re only going for a “flowy” look, the generic ones would do.
But, if you are going for a spaghetti-straight look, I think the Dafni really is on a different planet. You can use it a lot more and you can totally tell that it’s not damaging your hair as much as the cheapo straighteners: the temperature is way more constant, and you really can’t mess up without the somewhat deceiving temperature control of the generic hair straightening brushes.
So, all in all, if you want something to replace your flat iron altogether, the Dafni is the only hair straightening brush you should be looking at.
Here’s a quick before and after shot, too!
A Quick Video Review
I shot a quick video while using the Dafni hair brush straightener, so you can check it out in action and compare the results with the other hair straightening brushes!