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Annie Blay
Tue, October 22, 2024 at 2:22 AM GMT+7·9 min read
Courtesy of brand and subject
It’s common knowledge within the natural hair community that applying heat when wearing a deep conditioner or mask helps the product penetrate better. When we’re not able to hit the salon, many Black women resort to creative means for achieving this, like wrapping our conditioner-soaked curls in several layers of plastic to trap moisture or wrapping a hot towel around hair before covering it with a shower cap. While resourceful, these methods just don’t cut it. They’re time-consuming and, ultimately, don’t provide enough direct heat and moisture to open the hair’s cuticle. So when I learned that Pattern Beauty was launching a hand-held, at-home hair steamer, my curls immediately perked up.
“In the same way we recommend moisturizing the skin right after the shower to lock in hydration benefits from humidified air, it’s the same for hair,” says board-certified dermatologist Mona Gohara, MD. “Moisture [with] heat helps open up the cuticle, allowing for better absorption of [more] moisture. This benefits the hair in the short term, but having well-hydrated hair consistently can benefit hair in the long term.”
Pattern has set out to bring the benefits of steam-powered salon treatments into people’s personal bathrooms so “you no longer have to put the plastic cap with the conditioner and sit all day,” says Ni’Kita Durham-Wilson, the company’s vice president of product development. “You can now skip that step and within 15 minutes, steam your hair, get that level of penetration, and be on your merry little way. Washday doesn’t have to be a full day anymore.”
Never one to turn down the chance of a shorter washday, I got my hands on the Pattern Hair Steamer to try it myself.
Pattern Hair Steamer
$169.00, Pattern Beauty
Meet the experts:
- Mona Gohara, MD, is a board-certified dermatologist in Hamden, Connecticut.
- Ni’Kita Durham-Wilson is the vice president of product development at Pattern Beauty.
In this story:
Overview
Known and lauded for her voluminous curls, Tracee Ellis Ross launched Pattern in 2019. The brand has been successfully churning out curly-hair products (shampoos, conditioners, a scalp serum, and an arsenal of styling products) since its inception. Last year, Pattern made its foray into hot tools with its blow dryer. This year, it launched the Best of Beauty-winning curling iron, and now, its hair steamer.
Says Durham-Wilson, the Pattern product development team dreamed up the steamer while discussing and reflecting on hair issues that are common among a variety of natural hair types and styles. “It is something that our consumers were asking for too,” she adds. “We did a whole consumer audit, and a steamer actually [ranked] quite high as something that they wanted to see from Pattern.”
The Pattern team began developing the steamer about 15 months ago, and according to Durham-Wilson, it took them 19 iterations to land on the perfect model.
About the Tool
The Pattern Hair Steamer comes in the brand’s signature mustard color and has a flat base (so it sits upright on flat surfaces) and a neck that fits comfortably in one hand. Built into its head are seven prongs that deposit steam to hydrate, detangle, and lift your hair. It also comes with two attachments: a disc that snaps on with four additional prongs that lay at the middle of your original seven for better detangling, and a diffusing cone that twists on to help define your curls.
Setting it up is simple: Remove the water cartridge by pressing two buttons on the sides of its base. Once the cartridge is off, lift the small, circular tab on it and fill with distilled water. If you fill to the maximum fill line (150 mL), your steamer will run for 16 minutes.
How I Tested It
I recently got my hair colored and silk pressed for the start of fall, but after about two weeks, it was time to wash my hair—and to pray my curls survived the heat and chemical processing I had put it through. I planned to use a few intensive treatments, such as the Pattern Bounce Back Pre-Shampoo and Pattern Breakage Barrier Repair Mask, to revive my curls and thought I’d also put this steamer to the test. After all, the brand did say the tool is best used to enhance treatments.
I’m not a natural hair novice (I’ve been natural for about 10 years now), but I am a bit of a newbie when it comes to using hair tools. Despite my lack of experience, I found the steamer easy to use. I briefly read the instructions, which led me to open the water cartridge at the bottom and fill it with water. After popping the cartridge back in, I pressed the start button, waited for it to stop blinking, switched on the steam function, and voilà! Steam was coming out of the device in seconds.
As the device was heating up, I applied copious amounts of the Pattern Bounce Back Pre-Shampoo to my straight hair and worked it through with my fingers. I normally use Olaplex No.3 as a pre-shampoo treatment but decided to switch it up, keeping it all in the Pattern family for this washday. As the product sank in, I saw my hair start to get a little curly, but my coils got really springy when I started using the steamer.
I started using the steamer without any attachments except the default prongs while my hair was saturated with the pre-poo. The default prongs had the same effect for detangling as a wide-tooth comb. After I added the additional prong attachment, my curls were singing. Detangling my hair has never been that easy. The combination of the steam and the pre-poo made my curls slip easily through the prongs and left them feeling soft and hydrated.
After shampooing my hair, I partitioned it into four sections to make steaming my whole head of hair more manageable. Before reaching for the steamer again, I coated the strands with Pattern Breakage Barrier Hair Mask, which has a thick, goopy, gel texture. With this steamer, I love that you can turn the steam function on and off without completely unplugging or powering off the device, the way you would have to with a lot of other hair steamers. (This steamer turns off on its own after 60 minutes.) This makes it easy to use as you move from section to section on your head. I made the mistake of holding the steamer too long in one area and holding it too close to my scalp, at which point it did slightly burn my scalp, so word to the wise: Keep the steamer about five or six inches away from your scalp. If you do want to get close to your scalp, don’t hover for too long.
Again, the steam along with the mask made my curls so soft and easy to slip through. I used the prong attachment to further detangle each section, before hovering the diffuser attachment over my entire head. Typically, I would put a mask in my hair, cover it with a plastic cap, and do a small task around the house to pass the time while I let the mask sink in; with this steamer, though, I was able to give myself back about 30 minutes.
I was also pleasantly surprised by how easy and mess-free the steamer is. It didn’t leak at all, nor did the steam fog up my whole bathroom and leave my floors, mirrors, and sink surface slick and slippery. If anything, I noticed less shedding as I detangled, which meant less hair for me to sweep up at the end of the night.
I wrapped up the “wash” part of my washday and put my hair into small twists for a twist-out. With each section, I couldn’t help but marvel at how soft and hydrated my curls felt—it’s like my hair was saying, “Girl, where have you been hiding this tool all along?”
While my twist-out results didn’t feel all that different from the usual, the Pattern Hair Steamer made my washday easier, more efficient, and more enjoyable—and that’s a win for me.
More Allure review
Talia Gutierrez, associate manager, special projects
I have 2B/2C waves and after using the Pattern Hair Steamer, I can confirm it was designed for textured hair types with tighter curls. I tried using it to refresh my waves, using the prong attachment to comb through my hair when my waves were barley damp and coated with the Ceremonia Leave In Conditioner and the Bumble and Bumble Curl Activator Spray.
My hair retains a ton of water after showering, so using a steamer while my hair is heavy with water just didn’t doesn’t seam necessary. I think it’d work better for my hair type as a treatment steam with a hair mask. Using it to refresh my waves made my hair frizzy and broke apart the waves that were defined.
Giancarlos Kunhardt, associate visuals editor
The Pattern Hair Steamer has completely replaced my bulky, generic facial steam I was using on my hair. I used the steamer with the Pattern Intensive Conditioner and it left my 3C curls feeling hydrated—plus the detangling attachment works gently without tugging. It’s a total game changer!
Pricing and value
The Pattern Hair Steamer retails for $169. Given how easy it is to use and store, plus all the benefits it gives your hair, this tool is well worth the price. Other hair steamers on the market, like the Kingsteam Hair Steamer and the Q-Redew Hair Steamer, cost a little less, but they are also bulkier and less intuitive. Bigger steamers like Kingsteam are hard to store and certainly hard to travel with, and smaller steamers like Q-Redew are limited due to their lack of attachments.
Pattern’s steamer strikes a sweet spot. It’s not too big, but it is sizable enough to comfortably fit in your hand and easily steam your entire head. You do need to hold the tool and manually move it around your hair, so if you prefer the relaxing ease of sitting under a dryer to steam, the hand-held feature may feel like a setback.
Aside from the hands-free function, the different attachments make it even more versatile than other steamers on the market. Plus, it’s a sleek tool that looks great sitting atop any bathroom counter.
