Cricut Hat Press Review: You’ll Need Your Thinking Cap for This

We are no strangers to the Cricut range here at Lifehacker Australia. From creating custom cards to funky mugs, we love anything that will help level up our DIY creations. So when the opportunity arose to give the Cricut Hat Press a go, we jumped at the chance.

I mean, who wouldn’t be excited about the prospect of being able to create personalised, one-of-a-kind hats that will make your friends jealous?

It also helps that I shaved all my hair off seven months ago, so it’s the perfect time for me to get back into wearing hats. What better hat to wear than the ones I’ve created myself?

Anyways, without further ado, here are my thoughts on the Cricut Hat Press.

What is the Cricut Hat Press?

The Cricut Hat Press is one of the newest releases in Cricut’s heat press range, allowing you to create custom hat designs.

It’s got a curved, ceramic-coated heat plate design which makes it really easy to press decorative pieces onto hats. You can use Cricut Iron-On, Infusible Ink and Infusible Ink pens, which each allow you to create whatever designs your imagination can conjure up.

Cricut Hat Press also connects via Bluetooth to the Cricut Heat app, which guides you through your project. We will get more into the app in a moment, however.

Overall thoughts on the Cricut Hat Press

The main tagline for the Cricut Hat Press is ‘Pro hats made easy,’ and to a certain extent, that is true.

Setting up the machine itself and connecting the app is almost seamless and requires next to no thought. It was when it came to designing and transferring things onto the hat that things started to go just a tad bit pear-shaped for me.

Although I had experience with the Cricut Design Space after reviewing the Cricut Joy, I still found it difficult to wrap my head around certain elements of the hat press. Things like sizing, style and designing elements with the intention of pressing them onto a hat.

With the Cutaway Cards, you didn’t have to think as much about how it would look as it was pretty exact from the original design.

For the hats, however, I had to flip the wording around so it would read the correct way; figure out how to cut the design properly and also spend time thinking about how it would transfer onto the hat.

Obviously, with time and practice comes perfection, but there are limited opportunities to practice here because you only get a certain amount of material and hats, and you don’t want to take the risk of something not working out.

In saying that, thanks to the handy videos both on the Heat app and on Cricut’s website, I was able to eventually get my bearings with the Hat Press.

Cricut Heat app

The best part about the Cricut Hat Press is the Heat app that assists you in transferring your designs onto the hats.

If you’re like me, DIY projects can get a little overwhelming because you don’t entirely understand what’s going on, but with the app, all the guesswork is taken out.

Using Bluetooth, the Cricut Heat app sends ideal time and temperature settings to the Cricut Hat Press. As such, it’s really hard to mess up the heating process because the app does literally everything for you.

The Cricut Heat app is free to download and it covers information and guidance on nearly every heat press project. You can choose what materials you’re working with and it will set the perfect temperature and time settings on the Hat Press for you. It also tells you how to press your project, which is pretty neat.

The app makes the entire product really accessible and connects seamlessly with the Hat Press itself. I didn’t feel like I was a complete novice when making my hats, and that’s largely to do with the app.

The Cricut Heat App highlights that Cricut is really trying to demystify the idea that creating your own clothes, products and accessories can only be done by professionals. In saying that, the price point for the machines (the Cricut Hat Press retails at $229) does still limit some from being able to reap the benefits of it.

Watercolour ink vs iron-on materials

Watercolour ink:

Enter my biggest struggle with using the Cricut Hat Press: watercolour infusible ink.

While that might seem dramatic, and it most certainly is, I really had a tricky time figuring out how to properly use the watercolour infusible inks.

My first issue was that I didn’t account for the fact the design, which was wording that said “Gluten Free”, would have to be mirrored so that it would be read the correct way when pressed on. This meant that I had to cut more of the ink sheet out.

My next issue came from the fact that I did not realise that the watercolour wasn’t on both sides and wouldn’t transfer onto the hat if you had the ink facing you.

Once I did manage to figure it out, however, it just didn’t really look how I wanted it to. I think this was because of the size and style of the font. It just ended up looking like I had drawn it on with a marker.

Using the Cricut Hat Press and watercolour ink taught me that the way I was designing wasn’t the most practical.

Cutting the letters out one by one was a tedious and arduous process, and then for it not to turn out how I wanted was a little disappointing.

Could some of these issues have been avoided if I used common sense and watched a tutorial first? Yes, absolutely. So it’s definitely not something that we can blame Cricut for.

In short: Please don’t let my experience with them deter you from using them; they just weren’t working for me.

Iron-on material:

What I did love, however, was the Cricut iron-on materials that were a lot easier to use and, in my opinion, looked a lot cleaner than the ink.

Again, not to be dramatic, but they restored my faith in the Cricut Hat Press after my watercolour fiasco.

The cherry hat design took me about five minutes in total to create, and it pressed on perfectly.

It was a pre-made design and was a lot simpler to press onto the hat than the inks. Not only were fewer steps involved, but it was also just one cutout, rather than each individual letter.

I will definitely be creating more hats using different iron-on materials. I might at some point be brave enough to use the watercolours again, but first I need to get better at sizing and designing first.

Something else that I am really looking forward to is being able to take my Indigenous art designs and press them onto a hat.

It’s a pretty great feeling being able to wear something you’ve created and designed yourself, and the iron-on materials make that a really simple process.

Word of warning: I would recommend you use the Hat Press in a well-ventilated area or an open room. I was using mine in my bedroom with only one window open, and being close to the machine made me breathe in too many of the fumes that come off the transfer sheets. Not my finest hour.

Final verdict

I had a bit of a rollercoaster experience with the Cricut Hat Press, but I didn’t mind going for the ride.

Although I had some troubles with the watercolour infusible ink, I really had a seamless experience with the iron-on materials.

The ability to put whatever you want on a hat is pretty exciting and made me feel more creative. In saying that, however, if you don’t already have a Cricut machine it might be a bit of a stretch to have to buy one just to then buy the Hat Press as well.

Try getting one of the main Cricut machines first and give that a go before buying a whole suite of heat presses. If you love your experience (I really loved my time with the Cricut Joy) then you should get the Hat Press as an added extra.

But for those of you who do already have a Cricut machine, the Hat Press is a unique tool for creative types.

Overall, I think the Cricut Hat Press is a really fun addition to the Cricut range but not one you should invest in unless you’re really keen on making and designing your own hats.

Likes: 

• The Cricut Heat App
• Iron-on patches are easy and saviours when an ink design goes wrong
• The ability to make your own hats is exciting

Dislikes: 

• The price is a little steep for only being able to press designs onto hats
• If you aren’t totally serious, it might quickly become an expensive hobby. You have to buy the hats, the materials and the Cricut Hat Press itself.
• Trial and error isn’t afforded as you only really get one chance to make the design work on the hat

The Cricut Hat Press are now available from Office Works, on Cricut’s website and in some selected stores for RRP$229.