I was looking for a useable and space saving curling iron that could be used for a European trip. I decided on this item primarily based on a review showing a woman with long hair who claimed to have curled her hair with this product. It must have taken 4 hours! The overall product is just a little bit shorter than a regular curling iron, but the clip that holds your hair is very short, only 2 inches at most. This means that you can get only a very small amount of hair in it at a time. I very happily returned it and purchased something else.