Defined curls or smooth volume? The Bed Head Curlipops and the Farery mini thermal brush take opposite approaches to short hair. Here is how they compare.
Factor
Bed Head Curlipops 0.75 Inch Tourmaline
Farery Mini Thermal Brush 3/4 Inch for S
Style result
Defined curls and waves
Smooth volume and bend
Best cut
Bobs and lobs
Pixies and short bobs
Burn risk
Higher (exposed barrel)
Lower (bristle-covered)
Learning curve
Needs practice
Brush and go
Our Verdict
Choose the Bed Head Curlipops if you want real curls and waves on bob to lob-length hair and are willing to practice technique. Choose the Farery mini thermal brush if you want fast daily volume and smoothness with minimal skill and burn risk, especially on pixies and short bobs.
Not sold on either of these two? Here are more bestselling options worth considering.
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Hot Tools for Short Hair: Technique That Actually Reaches
Short hair breaks every standard hot-tool tutorial, which assumes enough length to wrap. With the Curlipops 0.75-inch wand on short hair, the technique is to wrap small sections and hold the wand more vertically than the tutorials show; a horizontal hold on short hair burns the scalp because the barrel sits too close. Work in sections no wider than an inch, and leave the very ends out of the wrap for the last few seconds to avoid the over-curled poodle effect that short hair gets from full wrapping.
The Farery mini thermal brush suits short hair differently: it is a smoothing and volumizing tool rather than a curling one, and its small barrel actually reaches short layers that a full-size hot-air brush cannot grip. For pixies and bobs, the brush used with a slight rotation at the roots builds lift that a wand cannot. The burn risk on short hair is real with both tools because everything happens close to the scalp and ears; keep a heat-protectant glove on the guiding hand and never hold either tool stationary against the head. The 1-inch Beachwaver guide covers the larger barrel for when your hair grows out.
Bangs and Short Layers: The Detail Work
Bangs are the hardest section on short hair because the margin for error is zero and everyone sees them. The mini iron or small-barrel technique for bangs is a single slow pass with the tool angled so the heat hits the hair, not the forehead; two fast passes cause more damage than one slow controlled one. For curtain bangs on a bob, wrap each side away from the face on the small wand, hold for five seconds, and release; the curl sets as it cools, so do not touch it until it is cool.
Short layers around the crown need the opposite of what long hair needs: instead of wrapping lengths around a barrel, press and rotate the thermal brush at the roots to build volume, because short layers have no length to hold a curl shape. The most common short-hair mistake is using the same temperature as for long hair; short hair dries and heats faster, so drop one heat level from what you would use on longer lengths. If bangs keep splitting, the cause is usually product buildup at the roots rather than the tool; clarify the fringe area and the problem often disappears.
Matching Tool to Hair Type: Wand vs Thermal Brush
No competitor matches form factor to hair type, so here is the direct answer for these two tools. Fine, slippery short hair does better with the thermal brush, because the bristles grip what a smooth wand barrel lets slide; fine hair wrapped on a wand often unspools before it heats through. Coarse, resistant short hair does better with the Curlipops wand, because the direct concentrated heat of a wrapped barrel forces a curl shape that a brush cannot impose on stubborn texture.
Beginners with no technique should start with the thermal brush regardless of hair type, because the worst outcome is under-styled hair, while the worst outcome with a wand is a burn or a kink. Damaged or bleached short hair should avoid the wand's direct heat in favor of the brush's diffused heat, and keep temperatures at the lowest effective setting. For the flat-iron side of short styling, the flat iron guide covers mini irons built for pixie lengths.
What Goes Wrong at the Wrong Barrel Size
The 0.75-inch Curlipops barrel on short hair produces tight, defined curls, which is the point, but on hair longer than a bob it produces curls that take forever because each section is small relative to the head. The failure mode nobody names: using a small barrel on long hair means dozens of sections and an hour of styling, with the first sections falling flat before the last are done. Match the barrel to the length you have now, not the length you want.
The thermal brush has the inverse limit: on long hair it smooths but cannot create defined curl, so buyers wanting curls from a brush end up disappointed. The honest pairing is that short hair can use either tool successfully, medium hair needs the larger barrel for efficiency, and long hair needs a full-size curling iron or wand. Buying the small tool for long hair is the most common regret in this category; check your length against the tool's design before the price tempts you.
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