You may want to style your hair while out on the road in your car or RV. With no shore power available, you may be wondering if you can reliably run a hair straightener off an inverter without damaging it and if so what type and size of inverter you should use.
Read on for information about what size and type of inverter to use for your hair straightener, indicative power consumption (watts) of a hair straightener, and also if you’re curious how much it probably costs to use a hair straightener
What Size of Inverter to Use?
Your choice of inverter capacity (watts) depends on the power consumption of the hair straightener and the combined power consumption of other appliances connected to the inverter at the same time as the hair straightener.
Make sure to use a pure sine wave inverter as some brands may not work with modified sine wave inverters.
With a 45-watt hair straightener alone, while a 100-watt pure sine wave inverter can probably supply enough power, you’ll probably want the option to connect more appliances to the inverter so you may want to consider a 500-watt sine wave inverter or larger.
Do Hair Straighteners use a lot of Electricity?
The electricity consumption of a hair straightener can be minimal depending on the brand and model used.
If you take one popular brand with a power consumption of 45 watts uses an estimated 135Wh a month ( assuming usage of 3 times a week for 15-30 minutes each). This works out to be under 2 cents.
Annual Electricity Consumption
Using the monthly energy costs above, over a year, the energy consumption works out to be under 2kWh (1.62kWH to be exact) and costs only about 20 cents.
How Many Watts a Hair Straightener Uses?
There is no one power consumption value for a hair straightener. The power draw depends on the brand, model, and temperature setting selected. Some hair straighteners draw about 45-50 watts of power at 110 – 240V.
How Many Amps?
A hair straightener with a power consumption of 45 watts at 110V has an estimated amp draw of about 0.5 amps.
Alternative Ways of Powering a Hair Straightener
There are also 12V/ 50W hair straighteners suited to styling hair while out on the road. These can be plugged into a 12V outlet.
Make sure the outlet wiring can handle the amp draw of the hair straightener.
Closing Thoughts
Yes, you can power a hair straightener using an inverter. Make sure it is adequately sized to meet the hair inverter’s power consumption and any other appliances that need to be powered at the same time.
Note: Some hair straighteners may not work with modified sine wave inverters.
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