How on earth do you use a curling wand???!!! ive been trying for about a year and all that i can do is kink the ends of my hair (which is long and very thick).
Is there a special technique that i dont know about?
Please help!

If you are kinking the ends when trying it, you probably have one of two problems -

1.) Either you're using an iron with too hot of a setting for your hair type
or
2.) You're using an iron with too small of a barrell for the thickness of your hair

either way, you're essentially "burning" the ends of your hair, instead of getting a nice soft roll as intended.

How on earth do you use a curling wand???!!! ive been trying for about a year and all that i can do is kink the ends of my hair (which is long and very thick).
Is there a special technique that i dont know about?
Please help!
It sounds like to me you have the curling iron backwards. When curling make sure the flat lever is away from your body. Now slide the hair in, close the clamp, slide down to ends of hair and wind under. I did that when I first starting using them.

If you are kinking the ends and aren't doing anything listed above, you might just be leaving too much sticking out so it gets folded weird at the ends. This has happened with me. I make sure to clamp the end of the section I am curling, then wrap up my hair making a spiral shape. If I wrap it around itself TOO much, then it only creates one big curl instead of making my hair curly. Also, when I am releasing the hair from the iron, I pull the iron downwards as I slowly unclamp it.. this also makes more of a spiral than if you just release the iron and let go.

No, no, I know what you're doing wrong. I did this for years and never bothered using my curling iron until I finally asked on a Vogue forum and learned. Now I use it almost every day, it looks SO GOOD!

I used to think you were supposed to put the hair in, then roll/twirl it up towards the head, hold, then release. But this always left a stupid kink/curl at the ends but nothing else all the way down the hair!

So...what you're supposed to do is actually manually yourself wrap the hair around the wand bit and then clamp it. Hold the wand high up near your roots/head and wrap around, clamp and hold. Then release and there should be good curls!

Be careful to curl bits of hair not too thick or too much hair or it won't work as well. Or if they're too thin, it'll kink too strongly and turn out like tight ringlets.

Good luck!