Invisibobble Review

This review is for the seemingly revolutionary Invisibobble which is touted as a 'traceless hair ring'. My first thoughts were 'poppycock' but I'm a converted fan.

Sit down, sip your milk and nibble on a cookie, it's story time. When it comes to haircuts, I only ever have a wash and cut. I had a snip the other day and made sure to carry a hair band with me to restrain my wet, poodle hair so I could scuttle off home to tame it myself. However when I was leaving the salon, I went to tie my hair back and my totally overstretched hair tie snapped! I couldn't possibly leave the salon looking like Medusa but luckily enough I spotted some hair ties for sale at the reception desk. Jackpot, I thought, my pride had been saved. Off I went with my tiny box of Invisibobbles for which I was charged £3.95. That is more than the RRP might I add. What can I say, I was up s**t's creek and desperate.

Enter Invisibobble!

The hair bands do look quite cute and I was attracted to the tiny box they came in. They are like old telephone cords (some people probably aren't old enough to know what I'm talking about here) and to be fair they are quite stretchy. In their normal state, I can get my finger through them so they are quite small in diameter to begin with. This worried me because I have a mass of very thick curly hair and to avoid the ominous hair kink, I stretch my hair bands to the point of no return. This practice can lead to eventual snapping which was the C.O.D of my hair tie I'd tried to tie my hair with after my cut. A moment of silence please. R.I.P.

So long, my faithful friend.

I had my suspicions about the efficacy of the Invisibobble. How could they be so tiny, strong and elastic yet not create the hair kink? I didn't believe that I would be able to get something so tiny around my hair without a kink because I was so used to irreversibly stretched hair bands.

Thou shalt not fool me.

In a totally scientific experiment, I tied my hair up at a medium height and left it there all day and night. Result: no kink. I'm shocked! The Invisibobble actually worked. I usually avoid tying my hair up because of the kink caused by elastic hair bands but now this takes the doom out of it. Usually a normal hair band would have rendered my curls impossible to leave down due to causing a serious dent in my hair.

Thinking that perhaps stretching the Invisibobble would make it snap eventually, I decided to do an experiment to see just how far they would stretch and if they would retract. I put the yellow band around a tub of hair masque (which is quite big as you can see below) and left it overnight. I took it off in the morning and over the course of a day, the band did return to its original shape and its elasticity was not affected in the same way a normal hair tie would have been. This is impressive if you need your hair ties to stay small and elastic, for example if you have a small circumference of hair when it is tied back. I'm assuming the Invisibobble won't snap due to over-stretching and loss of elasticity, unless you try and wrap it around a hippo or something.

Invisibobble returning to it's natural state - tiny.

On the down side, I don't know about other Invisibobbles and if mine are the exception but I felt snagging on my hair. I tried my best to take a picture of the join in the hair band and if you look closely, it is definitely not smooth. In fact the join is rough and my hair gets caught every time I wear it. This is not the only cause of snagging though, my curls just love to wrap themselves around the coils of the Invisibobble when I'm taking it out. It can get very annoying having to detach the Invisibobble from my hair as I'm not used to doing it with my regular, metal free hair ties. They are not easy to untie and in fact they're so annoying that I actually dread taking an Invisibobble out of my hair! If you have curls you may want to reconsider.

Ouch, Invisibobble!

As for the headache claim, at first I thought Invisibobble were referring to people with heavy hair or those who may tie their hair up quite high. I still don't really know. Surely they're not suggesting that actual hair ties give people headaches, they must mean the way in which people use them. I did get a headache once or twice whilst using the Invisibobble over the last few days and I did feel it pulling on my hair before readjusting it. Generally though, I think Invisibobbles are probably the most comfortable hair ties I've ever used. The coils seem to nuzzle their way into my hair for great grip.

A thoroughly cosy Invisibobble

Invisibobble recommend wearing the hair tie around your wrist when it isn't in you hair because according to their website, it 'looks very stylish'. Hmm, I was ten over a decade ago but what the heck. The website also says that Invisibobbles are caring to the hair because they don't contain metal. Well, I have elastic hair ties which don't contain metal either and they are better value for the price and don't have a rough join. On the up side, Invisibobbles are waterproof which is great in my opinion. It means I can section my hair with them whilst I detangle in the shower and not have to use soggy hair bands afterwards on my dry hair.

I think these retail for £3.75 but I was charged £3.95 for just three hair bands. This is ridiculous in my mind because who can possibly keep track of just three hair bands? I know I will lose them randomly and I'm wondering how three plastic telephone cords could cost that. I recently met a girl who said she got hers for roughly 20p in Turkey. Shop around people. Still, I think these are alright!