MEN who are meticulous about how spiffy their shirts and trousers look make up about half of the customers for Laurastar's ironing systems, notes Robert Goh, business development manager for Blenwel, which distributes the Swiss brand of ironing systems.

'They buy it for themselves and their wives, because they want clothes to look perfectly pressed,' he says.

If you're wondering what's the hype about Laurastar systems, they're irons that take the guesswork out of ironing, halving the time it takes to iron, and giving you professional results.

The latest model, Magic i-S6, was launched in Singapore recently. It is the most lightweight iron to date, and has intuitive automatic steam, along with a 2.5m cable with auto-rewind and a foldable ironing board that comes with two integrated wheels for easy storage.

Its 'magic' is in the high-pressurised microfine dry steam and a soleplate that won't burn, thus eliminating the need for temperature adjustments according to material.

Laurastar was the first company to take professional ironing technology into domestic homes, said Pierre Clement, Laurastar's global commercial director who was in Singapore recently. 'If you look at any other home appliance, all of them have seen technological advances. Except irons. Until we came on the scene in 1980,' he pointed out.

'We basically took the tools that a professional laundromat uses in its steam-iron system, analysed the most effective ironing methods, and built it into a domestic iron,' he said.

Basically, using the Laurastar is so idiot-proof that even a man would enjoy it.

The Magic i-S6 is retailing for $2,988 at Blenwel, Harbourfront Centre #03-13/14/15

This article was first published in The Business Times on Aug 16, 2008.