CHI recently sent me their Electronic Iron with Retractable Cord to review. I was happy to accept considering my last iron (pictured for comparison) was a cheapy one from Target that I dropped on the floor and broke a chunk off of about 3 years ago… Basically any iron would be better than that one, but I\’ve had this iron for a few weeks now and used it on everything from wool coating to cotton sateen to rayon lawn to handkerchief linen, and I\’m happy to report I really love it!
If you are familiar with CHI, it\’s probably because of their hair straighteners, which I actually straightened my hair with for these very photos! They really are the best for silky straight hair. My mom told me she used to iron her hair with the clothes iron in the 70s before hair straighteners, and CHI is sort of doing the same thing, but backwards–they\’ve adapted the same ceramic titanium plate technology to their new household irons. The same way the ceramic-coated paddles of their hair straighteners glides over hair, this iron really glides over fabric–it\’s non-stick and non-static. It also creates an amazing amount of steam! I steam-pressed three yards of wool using this iron and it took no time at all thanks to the large water receptacle and 400 steam holes. It has settings for synthetics, silk, wool, cotton, and linen, a retractable cord, and an automatic off. I really like the shape of the plate, which has a pointy \”nose\” that is nice when pressing seams flat and getting into tight corners.
One thing that I never thought about with my previous irons, but have grown to really appreciate in this one, is the sound alert. As opposed to my old iron, which blinked when it was heating up or had turned itself off, and had a steady light when on and fully heated, the CHI iron makes a pleasant beeping noise when it has fully heated up and when it is going into standby/safety mode. I really like this more than I thought I would, since it lets me know when I\’m ready to press even if I\’m sitting at my machine, not paying attention to my ironing board.
Along with all those pros, my only sort-of con: this iron is big and gets heavy! Because of the large water container and retractable cord (you can see the opening for the cord in the last picture), the base of the iron is large. If you like to fill your iron directly from the tap like I do, know that this iron barely fits under the faucet in my bathroom sink. When the water receptacle is filled, this iron weighs a lot, but then again, isn\’t that sort of what an iron is supposed to do? For me, the many pros (great steam, sound notifications, big plate, smooth gliding surface) totally outweigh this small inconvenience.
Do you love your iron or is it more of a love/hate relationship? If you are feeling like an upgrade, you can find this iron at Bed Bath & Beyond for $99 with free shipping.
xoxo,
i love the idea of the sound alert!