The Beachwaver curling iron rotates, an idea a hairstylist sketched after one confused phone call. I go through four rotating irons, what Pro, S and B mean, and the prep and heat protectants I would use with one.
Beachwaver Began With a Phone Call and a Very Confused Editor
The Beachwaver starts with a phone call. In 2010 the hairstylist Sarah Potempa was explaining her beach wave technique to an editor: hold the iron upside down, wrap the hair backwards and away from the face. The editor said she was so confused, and they both laughed. Potempa hung up and sketched an iron you could hold upright, with a small clamp at the bottom to hold the ends and a barrel that rotated to do the winding for you. Her sister Erin, then a corporate lawyer, quit her job to help build it, and the sketch became a patented rotating iron. I love a brand whose entire product is an answer to a question someone actually asked. This edit is Beachwaver from the top: four of the irons, the triple barrel waver and the prep products the brand makes to go with them, then heat protectants from four other houses, because any hot tool wants something between it and your hair. Start with the irons below and notice how much of the difference between them is simply barrel size.
Pro, S and B, decoded
If the model names in that first grid confused you, Potempa explained them to The Strategist. The Pro came first, built long and high end for hairdressers. After meeting customers on QVC she realized many had shorter hair, so she made the S series with a shorter barrel and a button that resets the clamp, and the B series later cut the buttons back even further. Grid two starts with the 3B Waver, a triple barrel tool where you clamp, slide and repeat for mermaid waves, which is the lowest effort route to a beach wave curling iron look I can think of. The brand's own prep follows. Great Barrier is a heat protectant spray with light, flexible hold that goes on damp or dry hair, and its Polynesian Pink Sugar scent leans coconut and mandarin. Keep It Calm is a smoothing cream for flyaways, and Braid Balm is a foam you work in before you braid. My tip is to apply the cream a fingertip at a time, because a whole palmful flattens a wave before it forms.
A hot tool wants a buffer
Every wave in this story ends at a hot barrel, so the last grid is the layer that goes on first. Moroccanoil Perfect Defense is a weightless dry spray, and the house was built around argan oil after co-founder Carmen Tal first tried an argan treatment at a Tel Aviv salon. Drybar Hot Toddy is a mist for dry hair with heat-activated rice proteins and marula oil, and the brand says it protects up to 450 degrees. Oribe Royal Blowout is a concentrated spray for smooth blowouts, from a house launched in 2008 by Daniel Kaner with the stylist Oribe Canales. Kenra Professional Blow-Dry Spray says it cuts blow-dry time by up to 50 percent. The habit to build is simple: let hair dry completely before any hot tool touches it. What I would skip is clamping an iron onto hair that is still damp, because no protectant makes up for steam in the barrel. Spray, let it settle for a minute, then start the first section.
Where I would begin
I would begin with the iron and one protectant, nothing more. Learn how your hair behaves around a rotating barrel on a single section, and notice which direction the arrows send the curl. Add the prep products when you know what your waves are missing, whether that is hold, smoothness or help with a braid. Potempa has said her sketch was almost identical to the iron that launched, which tells me the idea was right early. After that it is a matter of taste and barrel size, and you can get to know both in one morning.
