CHI G2 Titanium Infused Ceramic 1" Flat Iron Hair Straightener

Why it's worth it

The CHI G2 pairs titanium-infused ceramic plates with a digital display and color-coded settings for different hair types. It skips the smart features and the styling versatility, but the fundamentals are solid, and CHI has been making irons like this for a long time.

You get real temperature control, not vague low-medium-high. The G2 has a digital display with preset options mapped to hair types, so you can pick a genuinely low setting for fine or bleached hair and a hotter one for thick hair. That's the single most useful feature on an inexpensive iron. Most cheap straighteners give you three unlabeled settings and let you find out the hard way which one scorches.

Titanium-infused ceramic spreads heat more evenly than plain ceramic. The infusion helps the plates hold temperature when you're pulling through a dense section, while the ceramic base keeps the heat distributed rather than concentrated in hot spots. Uneven plates are the usual failure mode in low-cost irons, because one stripe of your hair takes far more heat than the rest without you ever seeing it happen.

From our review of 5 hair straighteners and flat irons, by Sarah Wright, Editorial Associate

What we like

• +You get real temperature control, not vague low-medium-high
• +Titanium-infused ceramic spreads heat more evenly than plain ceramic
• +It's the sensible choice if you straighten now and then
• +It's a known quantity

What to know

• –It's slower to warm up than the professional irons here
• –Nothing limits the heat for you
• –It's a straightener, full stop