Tried and tested — L’Oréal’s SteamPod 3.0 straightens your hair like a pro

L'Oréal Professionnel’s SteamPod 3.0 is a new and improved tool that uses a combination of heat and steam to straighten hair, with 78% less damage than a regular straightening iron. The SteamPod is lighter, slimmer, and more convenient than its previous two incarnations and includes an integrated water tank and a rotative cord. 

We tested the SteamPod 3.0 on one of OLM’s staffers to see how it works. Our web editor has thick, frizzy, shoulder-length hair that she usually flat-irons at least once a week. As much as we like her, her hair makes her look like a Wooly Mammoth! But, in just 16 minutes, her whole head of hair was tamed and looking professionally coiffed — even with the lockdown keeping her from having a trim since before Christmas.

ABOVE: Our staffer looked a little rough around the edges before we tamed her frizz with the SteamPod 3.0. Afterward, she looked incredibly polished even though we only straightened her hair. 

The SteamPod 3.0 has arrows on the outside to show you which side is down. It's very easy to use, just make sure your hair is combed, or kinky hair can get caught in the built-in comb. We set the temperature to 410 degrees for our test, the highest of the three settings. 

Aside from speed and the great results, the SteamPod is so easy to use, and it weighs only slightly more than 1 lbs. The integrated water tank may look tiny—I admit to being skeptical and thinking that it would require refilling at least once—but surprisingly, it can straighten a whopping 152 meters of hair. It’s no wonder the French site beauté-test.com named it the #1 straightener! 

Not only is the SteamPod 3.0 at least twice as fast as a traditional flat iron, it also leaves your hair smoother feeling. For our test, we did not use L’Oréal’s SteamPod Steam-Activated Cream or the SteamPod Concentrated Serum but it is recommended that you use both products to protect your hair and to further enhance the final results.