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Styling that perfect braid or updo can be tricky to do, but I’ll share a little secret with you – it’s all in the prep work. Today I’m excited to be sharing with you the hair tools that I use to prep my own hair for all of the different hairstyles that I do.

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Hot Tools has been my go-to hair tool brand for years. I bought my first Hot Tools flat iron way back in high school and have bought Hot Tools ever since. They just launched the Golden rose collection and I think these are the prettiest hair tools I’ve ever used.

With my hair freshly washed, I’m going to start by using the Hot Tools Black Rose Ionic Salon Dryer to dry my hair.

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This Dryer is one of the most powerful dryers you can buy and it dries my hair so quickly. It makes my hair feel soft without over drying or frizzy which I love. My favorite feature is all of the settings it offers. Not only does it have a Low and High speed setting, but it also has three heat settings low, medium, and high so I can choose the settings that best suit my hair type and texture.

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Once my hair is dry I use the Golden Rose 1 1/4″ Flipperless Curling Wand to curl my hair. The 1 1/4″ barrel is my favorite size and it has a really cool feature to adjust the temperature by simply pushing in this little knob and then rotating it to the right or left. I love this because then I don’t accidentally raise or lower the heat while I’m using it which is something that has happened with other hot tools that I’ve used.

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I always curl my hair away from my face in 1″ sections. This curling wand curled my hair so quickly. I like to use it at 360 degrees but it heats up to 450 degrees so it works on every hair length, type and texture.

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To create half up hairstyle, I started by taking a section of hair on the right side above my ear, divided it into two sections, and twisted the sections around each other before pinning it at the back of my head.

Then I’m going to take a similar section on the left side, divide it into two sections, twisted them together, and pinned it at the back of my head.

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Then I went back over the twists and pulled on the edges of the twists to make them fuller.

Then I took a 2″ section of hair underneath the center of the twists and placed my right forefinger underneath it. Then I wrapped the hair around my finger, grabbed the hair with my thumb and finger and twisted my hand towards the right. Then I placed my thumb through the gap in the hair and pull the ends through the gap to create a knot.

Then I pinned the knot against my head with bobby pins.

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Thank you to Hot Tools for sponsoring this post.