With the high demand for home hair steamers over recent years, there have been a number of models coming out to cater for this. One such product is the Melissa hair steamer, which is made by BR Beauty. This is a standalone hooded hair steamer which is a very cheap model – in fact it is cheaper than some of the tabletop steamers. With such a low price we are a bit skeptical about the quality, but is there any truth to that? Keep reading to find out more.
Product Features:
This product was introduced a few years ago, and since then it has dropped quite drastically in price. When it first went on sale, it had a recommended retail price in the region of $199. Now this particular model can be found for only around $75 which make it seem like a great bargain.
The entire unit is mounted on four castor wheels, which do an acceptable job of moving it around. The metal base feels quite solid, and the height of the unit can be adjusted with a little knob on the main stand. The hood of the unit is a tinted acrylic, and feels and looks a bit cheap. The hood can be adjusted to suit your head, and the hood itself is large enough to accommodate any head size.
There isn’t too much functionality built into the machine. There is an auto cutoff switch too, in case the unit becomes empty to prevent and damage. There are two switches at the back in addition to the included 60 minute timer. Presumably both of these switches controls the flow of steam, as this seems to increase the flow of steam when each one is adjusted. The fact that neither of these are labelled is somewhat poor attention to detail, and makes you wonder how much effort they put into making this model.
As mentioned above there are no labels or anything on these dials to indicate what they do. The very basic booklet we received with the steamer only walked through the assembly of the unit, and even that was poorly done. There was no other documentation explaining the functionality of the machine, which we think is very poor in this day and age.
Assembling the machine was quite easy though, despite the poor assembly instructions. We had it up and running in a few minutes, and with a full tank full of water it took a few minutes to get ready to use. The temperature was tolerable in our opinion, but another issue cropped up shortly afterwards. We noticed that the unit started to drip, which is not a good sign. This continued until we switched off the machine, and although it was pouring water down, it is still somewhat annoying to have to mop up after using this model. A quick bit of googling confirms that this is a common problem with this model, so clearly we aren’t the only ones who got a faulty unit.
So that is where we left our testing. The dripping could probably be fixed by returning the unit, but the complete lack of documentation is a major letdown. When the machine worked it did an acceptable job, so it might be useable for someone on a very tight budget. Otherwise we would recommend you steer clear of this model and instead go for something like the Sky Enterprise Steamer instead.
Pros:
- Cheap
- Large Hood
- Easy to assemble
Cons:
- No labels on machine
- No proper documentation
- Unit drips
Summary:
Like many things in life, with the Melissa micro mist hair steamer you get what you pay for, which is a cheap and somewhat lacking steamer. There is no documentation with it, and none of the operating switches are labelled. Our unit dripped all over the place when in use, so the build quality doesn’t seem good. We recommend you avoid this model, and spend a little more cash on something a bit better. You can see the full specs of this model and some user reviews over here.
| Our Rating: |
|---|
| 2.5 |