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- Amazingly smooth and glossy finish
- Fast heat-up and styling
- Very easy to use
- Expensive
- Only one heat setting
- Wide plates struggle to curl
It’s been almost 25 years since GHD launched its first ceramic-coated straighteners in the UK, but never a brand to rest on its laurels, last year GHD launched its most advanced tool yet, the Chronos. Its bigger sibling, the Chronos Max, is the most recent addition to the GHD family. Both Chronos variants promise super-fast styling, up to three times faster than typical hair straighteners, including GHD’s own Original straightener. The Max introduces wider styling plates, particularly good for styling very long, thick or coarse hair.
There has been undeniable hype online about GHD’s latest offering. We got our hands on the Chronos Max to find out if it surpasses the original GHD Max as the preferred tool of choice for longer, thicker or harder-to-tame hair. Read on for our full Chronos Max review.
What do you get for your money?
At £300, the Chronos Max is a significant investment, even in comparison to its stablemates. At full price, the luxury GHD Platinum Plus will set you back £239, and the original Max goes for £209, so the Chronos Max is almost £100 more. GHD promises that this extra investment brings you the very latest technology, meaning faster styling with reduced frizz and the minimum possible damage. These are bold claims with a big price tag, so I put them to the test on my somewhat rebellious Type-3 curly hair.
The Chronos Max features a wishbone hinge, similar to the wishbone found on the Platinum Plus.This makes the straighteners easy and pleasant to hold. The Chronos Max’s upgraded wishbone hinge is responsive to grip, meaning you don’t need to hold the plates together really tightly to grip the hair – whatever pressure you’re comfortable with will do the trick. This also means there’s less chance of accidentally catching your hair on a rounded hinge as you style.
The styling plates are 4.2cm across, similar to the original Max, but with thinner edges. This allows you to bring the tool closer to the roots so you can straighten effectively from root to tip, which can sometimes be a challenge with bulkier wide-plate straighteners. The Chronos Max comes in fresh white and classic black colour options.
In testing, the Chronos Max heated up reliably in under 30 seconds to GHD’s single heat setting of 185°C: the brand claims this is the optimum temperature for heat styling without damage. Once the straighteners have heated up, you’ll be able to take advantage of the Chronos range’s new HD motion-responsive technology.
This is marketed as a step up from the Platinum Plus’s predictive styling technology, which monitors and adjusts the temperature of the tool in response to your styling motions. GHD promises the HD motion-response brings even quicker and more responsive heat adjustments so that you’ll never need to pass the tool through your hair more than once. This saves you time and reduces damage as the hair stays in contact with heat for less time.
Speed is a big selling point for the Chronos – the straighteners are, after all, named after the Greek god of time. According to GHD, the combination of the HD heat predictive technology and wider plates means even people with curly, thick and long hair should see straight and smooth results three times as fast.
The Chronos Max also features new high-gloss plates, visibly shinier on unboxing than the plates on previous GHDs. These promise to glide smoothly over the hair, and to flatten the cuticle smoothly for a super-shiny, “glass hair” finish.
What’s it like to use?
Getting the Chronos Max ready to use couldn’t be simpler: plug it in and press down the large, round power switch on the inside of the handle. The Chronos Max chimes to let you know when it’s up to temperature, and there’s also a glowing ring indicator at the base of the handle.
When the plates are ready, section your hair as you normally would and pass the straighteners over each tress. My dry and curly hair can sometimes catch and snag on typical straighteners, but the Chronos Max passed smoothly over my hair without fuss and straightened each section in one pass or sometimes two. The wide plates easily gripped larger sections of hair, reducing the time needed for each section, and the slimmer plates got closer to my roots than other wide-plate straighteners I’ve tested in the past. This meant there was no awkward, bumpy area on my scalp near the parting.
In my tests, the Chronos Max made fast work of my hair. I was able to fully straighten my slightly resistant-to-taming type 3 curls in under 20 minutes. That’s blisteringly quick but the real revelation was the glossy finish. Even at the dryer ends of my hair, the Chronos Max left my hair looking gorgeously shiny. It also felt nice and soft after styling, with no sign of dullness or crispiness and no frizz.
Like many hair straighteners, the Chronos Max has curved edges, allowing you to create curls and ringlets by twisting the tool as you style. My hair went smoothly around the edges, but on my mid-length locks the plates were too wide to create much of a curl. This could be less of a problem on longer hair, however you’ll never achieve the same ringlet curls with this as you can with typical, slimmer straighteners.
For my hair, the big test is how long a straight style will hold – both in terms of the straight shape and in staying frizz-free. After straightening with the GHD Chronos and going about my typical day, I found that the style held really well and stayed smooth and shiny. It also didn’t frizz up from morning to evening and even lasted into the next day.
Are there any downsides?
There’s no two ways about it – the GHD Chronos Max is priced higher than any of the brand’s other straighteners. It’s twice the price of GHD’s updated Original straightener, and more expensive than almost any other premium straightener, with the exception of the £400 Dyson Corrale. You would expect brilliant performance for that money and I must say that the Chronos Max does everything it promises, but it’s a definite investment and the price should cause you to pause before purchasing.
Furthermore, while the wide plates styled my mid-length curly hair quickly and easily, you probably need longer hair to get the benefit of curling from the curved edges. If you want to curl shorter than shoulder-length hair, the standard-width Chronos may be better suited.
The other potential downside is that you only get one temperature setting. While this means you don’t need to faff around selecting a temperature, people who have fine, bleached or damaged hair that needs to be styled at gentler temperatures may want to look elsewhere.
Should you buy the GHD Chronos Max?
I’ve been using the GHD Chronos for a few weeks and can’t deny that my hair feels soft and healthy after straightening, and the high-gloss plates really do produce an amazing shine. The Chronos Max heats up and styles quickly, and my hair looks noticeably glossier than with any other straightener I’ve used, including GHD’s own Platinum Plus that was my previous go-to.
If you don’t style your hair often and don’t mind spending a little longer straightening, or you already have a pair of straighteners that work for you, then you might not want to rush to spend £300 on a styling tool. However, if you style your hair often and want shiny, healthy-looking results in a flash then the GHD Chronos is an excellent product that does everything it says on the box.
