The best budget beard straighteners

What you actually give up at this price

The assumption going in is that a cheap beard straightener is a cheap heating element with vague settings and no numbers. For the brushes worth buying, that is not quite right. Three of the four brushes on this page publish a temperature range, one prints every stop, and two publish a heat-up time. On the specification that decides whether a heated brush helps or damages a beard, the budget end is better documented than you would expect.

What you give up is elsewhere. Aberlite publishes how far its anti-scald teeth hold the hot plate off your skin - 2 mm - and nobody here does. Aberlite publishes a 10-minute shut-off on the Pro; the budget brushes that publish one say 30 minutes. And Aberlite publishes a two-year warranty, where the best on offer here is a twelve-month return and exchange service.

What this page ranks on

1. The bottom of the published range. The first criterion, not the last. Every sensible instruction for a heated brush starts with the lowest setting and steps up; a brush whose floor is already hot removes that option before you start.
2. Whether each setting is published. Knowing the ends of a range is useful. Knowing what every stop in between means is better, because that is what you are actually choosing between each morning.
3. The ceiling - and lower is better. No beard needs 450 F. A high top setting is not extra capability; it is extra heat available to someone in a hurry.
4. Shut-off, voltage and warranty. A heating element you will eventually walk away from needs an auto shut-off, and a published warranty tells you what the maker is prepared to stand behind.

Price is deliberately not a criterion here: all four sit a bracket below the Aberlite range, and the differences between them are small next to the differences in what they publish. The live price is on each buy button.

Published figures, side by side

Read the third column from the left edge, not the right. The Cayzor and the FEBOTE both have five settings, and they barely overlap: the FEBOTE's lowest stop sits between the Cayzor's top two.

The pick: Cayzor Beard Straightener Comb

Five published stops at 210, 250, 280, 320 and 360 degrees F. A 21 W PTC heater with a ceramic coating, preheating in under a minute, a 30-minute auto shut-off and 100-240 V, all in a manual the maker publishes on its own site - along with a made-in-China disclosure, which no other heated brush we list publishes.

The bottom stop is the reason it wins. 210 F is the same floor as the Aberlite Pro, at a fraction of the price, and it means you can begin genuinely low. The top stop is the second reason: 360 F is the lowest ceiling of any heated brush we list, and the manual says the maker capped it there on purpose because higher temperatures straighten faster and do more damage. That is the same argument this site makes, from the people selling the tool.

It is also the only brush on this page that prints a temperature guide by hair type: 210 to 280 F for fine or damaged hair, 280 to 320 F for normal hair, 360 F for coarse, curly or thick hair. We would treat those as upper limits rather than starting points, but a maker that tells you which end of its own range to use is doing more than most.

The honest cons. The manual lists 280 F as the default level, not the bottom, so the first thing to do is step it down. The 30-minute shut-off is three times the Aberlite Pro's. There is no published anti-scald tooth depth. The cover is a twelve-month return and exchange service rather than a stated warranty term. And the manual overreaches in two places - it calls a burn "impossible" and promises "zero damage" at 360 F if used correctly - neither of which we would repeat about any heating element. It also suggests applying oil before straightening; we would put oil or balm on after the beard has cooled, for the reason in the method section below.

Most settings: Tame The Wild Pro

Twelve settings across a published 250 to 450 degrees F, an ionic generator, an anti-scald surface, a 30-minute auto shut-off and universal voltage. Twelve stops is the finest control of any heated brush we list, including the Aberlite Pro's ten, and the listing positions it for thick, coarse beards - which is where heat genuinely earns its place.

If you have a dense, curly beard past a couple of inches and you want to creep up on the right temperature in small steps, this is the brush that lets you do it. The 250 F floor is not as low as the Cayzor's, but for the beard it is aimed at that matters less: by Cayzor's own guide, coarse, curly or thick hair belongs at the top of a range rather than the bottom anyway.

The honest cons. The 450 F ceiling is the highest of any heated brush we list, and it is far more heat than a beard needs. Only the two ends of the range are published, not the value of each of the twelve settings, so the fine control is partly guesswork. There is no published heat-up time, heater type or tooth depth, no warranty term on the listing, and no separate spec sheet from the brand that we could find - the figures here are the listing's.

A published plate, and not much else: Wild Willies

A PTC heater, a tourmaline ceramic heating plate, three settings reaching a published 400 degrees F, an LED display, a 360-degree swivel cord and an energy-saving mode that cuts the heat when the brush is not in use.

The plate is the interesting part. Wild Willies publishes what its heating plate is made of, which the Aberlite range does not, and a swivel cord is a real convenience on a tool you move around your face. The energy-saving mode is a sensible answer to the walk-away problem.

The honest cons. Only the top of the range is published. The two lower settings have no stated temperature, which means the setting that matters most on this page - the lowest - is the one you cannot look up. Three settings is the fewest of any heated brush we list. The energy-saving mode has no published time, and there is no published voltage or warranty. At the time of writing it was sold out on the maker's own site, so Amazon is the place to buy it.

Fastest to heat, and the skip: FEBOTE

Five settings from a published 338 to 446 degrees F, 30 seconds to 338 F, a PTC ceramic heater, an LCD, a 30-minute auto shut-off, 110-240 V, and anti-scald teeth that stand proud of the heated ones. It comes with a shaping comb and a travel bag. On paper it is well specified, and the heat-up figure is the fastest published among the budget brushes.

The problem is the first number. A 338 F floor is hotter than four of the Cayzor's five stops and hotter than the middle stop on the Aberlite Pocket. Every sensible way to use a heated brush begins with the lowest setting and steps up, and this one begins above the whole range Cayzor's own guide gives for normal hair.

If you already know your beard needs at least 340 F, it will do the job. Most people buying their first straightener do not know that yet, and a brush that cannot go lower is the wrong tool to find out with. The Tame The Wild Pro covers the same top end and starts almost 90 degrees lower.

Which one for which beard

• Fine, wavy or medium beard, first straightener: the Cayzor. Its 210 F bottom stop is the lowest published floor on this page, and a beard like this is the one most likely to need it.
• Thick, coarse or tightly curly beard past a couple of inches: the Tame The Wild Pro. Twelve settings let you creep up in small steps - just stop well short of the top of the range.
• You want the simplest possible tool and will only use the lowest setting: the Wild Willies, with the caveat that you will not know what temperature that lowest setting actually is.
• Sensitive skin under the beard: none of the four publishes a tooth depth, so this is the case for spending more - see the next section.

When to spend more instead

There are three specific reasons to step up to an Aberlite, and they are all things the budget brushes do not publish:

• A published anti-scald tooth depth. Aberlite gives 2 mm. If you have sensitive skin under the beard, this is the figure that matters.
• A shorter shut-off. 10 minutes on the Pro and 15 on the Pocket, against 30 here.
• A published two-year warranty, on every Aberlite model we list.

The Aberlite Pocket is the natural step up - a bracket higher in price, five published stops from 260 to 400 F and a published half a minute to 300 F. The Pro sits in a different price bracket altogether. The main straightener roundup ranks them on the same method as this page.

How to use a cheap one without wrecking your beard

• Check the default, then step down. A brush that powers up in the middle of its range is inviting you to use the middle of its range. Press it down to the bottom stop before the first pass.
• Completely dry beard, always. Heat on wet hair boils the water inside the shaft - the most damaging mistake and the most common one. Cayzor's manual says the same.
• Test on a hidden section first. Underneath the jaw, one stop at a time, until it behaves. That number is your setting.
• One slow pass beats three fast ones. Three passes is three times the heat for the same result.
• Two or three times a week, not daily. Heat damage adds up, and it does not grow back any faster because the brush was cheap.
• Oil or balm afterwards, once the beard has cooled. Product plus heat is how you cook something onto the hair. The balm roundup covers what to use.

Try this before buying any of them

A lot of what reads as an unruly beard is not curl at all. It is split ends and dryness making the hair stand out, and that has a fix with no heat in it: a sawcut comb that does not tear hair, and oil worked into the skin underneath. The comb roundup covers the first and the softening guide covers the second.

Give it a month. If the beard is noticeably softer and flatter at the end of it, you did not need a heating element at any price. If it is still curling where you do not want it to, the Cayzor is the affordable place to start - at 210 F.