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“It’s the ease of using it that makes it attractive, and it gives you that salon finish,” says Karla Marabello, owner of K’Bello Organic Hair in New Jersey. The Revlon One-Step is also great even for those with thick and curly hair, she says. Emily Algar is a journalist who is passionate about all things beauty and skincare.
Best Hair Dryer for Frizzy Hair
The Harry Josh comes with two concentrator nozzles and has a "negative ion" setting switch that claims smoother styling. Without a nozzle accessory, Jessica struggled to control the dryer’s airflow, which caused her hair to poof up more than any other blow dryer. The nozzle attachment corrects this problem, but that accessory gets burning-hot to the touch, so there’s no taking it off mid-drying session without waiting for it to cool. ✔️ Adjustable heat and speed settings, which allow you to customize the level of heat and power the hair dryer emits according to your hair type and preferences. GH Beauty Lab testers found this lightweight Olivia Garden blow dryer dried hair quickly, thanks to its robust airflow and temperature yet didn't feel hot on the scalp, making it ideal for those with fine or thin strands. It was easy to hold and operate and received a perfect score for maneuvering attachments, plus has a generously long cord.
Best budget: Trademark Beauty Speedy Blo Hair Dryer
If you can wrap the ponytail with an elastic two to three times, it's medium. Bronwyn has also worked as an editor and writer, at InStyle, Entertainment Weekly, People, and National Geographic. Her work has been featured on USA Today, Travel + Leisure, and CNN Underscored. The obvious downside is the high price tag, but don't worry — there are plenty of more affordable picks below. Although these pieces snap onto the nozzle, they look as if they might screw on, which can be confusing at first.
Olivia Garden High Performance Professional Hair Dryer
The Good Housekeeping Institute Beauty Lab has been testing hair tools, including hair dryers — plus hair dryer brushes and travel hair dryers — for over a decade. In the GH Beauty Lab's most recent test, scientists evaluated 41 hair dryers over eight weeks (for a total of 320 hands-on testing hours), recording 2,244 data points to determine the winning models. Paul Mitchell has a reputation for implementing new technologies in their tools and the Neuro Dry is no exception. The dryer features a digital LED display for heat and power settings and has a “clean filter” indicator light. It comes with a diffuser, key for drying curly and natural hair textures, plus received a top drying rate score due to its airflow and high heat settings in Beauty Lab testing. But with so many brands on the market and seemingly endless factors to consider, from your hair type and concerns to each blow dryer's technology and your desired features, it can be tricky to know where to start.
Best for damaged hair: Conair Pro Style Bonnet Hair Dryer
In the Beauty Lab's most recent hair dryer test, experts evaluated the tools in the Lab and at home for ease of use, performance, drying time and whether they cause hair damage, among other factors. Over 2,000 data points were then tallied to identify the best hair dryers on the market for every hair type, from curly to fine, frizzy, thick and more. Ideal for fine and wavy hair types, the Conair dryer claims it features a circulating airflow system that gently reduces frizz while drying. Its diffuser enhances curls and waves, and for locking in styles, it comes with a cold shot button. Some reviewers just disliked that it felt heavier than other dryers they'd used.
Andis Bonnet Hair Dryer
While that’s a worthy investment for some, there are plenty of more affordable options that can still help you achieve the perfect blowout. Stylist Krysta N. Rojas, owner of Base Salon in Chicago, says she's come across budget options for all hair types and textures, many of which feature the same bells and whistles that their more expensive counterparts have. Just because a hair dryer can get hotter, doesn’t mean it’s better—higher temperatures don’t necessarily yield straighter or smoother results. In fact, having adjustable heat settings is better than just one hot temperature because you may find a setting causes your scalp to burn or your hair to feel scorched.
15 Best Hair Dryers for Curly Hair of 2024, Tested by Experts - Good Housekeeping
15 Best Hair Dryers for Curly Hair of 2024, Tested by Experts.
Posted: Fri, 09 Feb 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
It also has a mere one year of warranty coverage, and its nonintuitive touchscreen felt gimmicky. Shark has released another hair dryer called the SpeedStyle, as well as a new hair tool, the SmoothStyle (which resembles the Revlon One-Step). Despite the Supersonic’s flaws, compared with other dryers we’ve tested, this one truly feels like a luxury to use every day.
Best Affordable Travel Hair Dryer
However, the measured air speed was only 45 mph, and we found the handle thick and awkward to hold. The Conair 1875-Watt 3-in-1 Ionic Styler has a long row of grills (and a brush attachment) instead of a circular nozzle. It gives you no way to attach a diffuser, which means you’re stuck with a single-purpose dryer. For the initial iteration of this guide, we timed the models drying a swatch of hair from a wig wetted with 5 grams of water, with the dryers on their highest setting. The InfinitiPro By Conair SmoothWrap Hairdryer is our overall winner, scoring highly across all of our major categories during testing.
What about the Revlon One-Step and other hair dryer brushes?
The retro-looking Conair Pro Yellow Bird Hair Dryer is one of the hottest dryers we’ve tested (reaching over 245 °F). But at a pound and a half, it also ties for the heaviest dryer we’ve looked at. Its buttons are strangely placed and unlabeled, and it doesn’t have a cool shot. It used to be our favorite dryer that came with a straightening pick, but we now prefer the Pattern Blow Dryer. The final attribute we considered while using the hair dryers was the location and usability of the controls.
To prevent unwanted hair frying or damage, look for a blow dryer with adjustable heat and speed settings. This lightweight dryer weighs a little over a pound and has a 4.7-star average rating from 100 reviews at Pattern Beauty. If you want to add volume, consider using the wide tooth comb attachment, or use the concentrator nozzle attachment to focus on the roots and small sections. To keep your dryer in good condition, don’t forget to clean the filter and wipe away any product residue, like leave-in conditioner or a heat protectant, according to the brand.
Its diminutive but powerful motor lives inside the Supersonic's handle instead of the head, differentiating it from the other models we've tested. Lab pros found it lightweight and "very comfortable to hold with easy-to-reach controls." Though it was slightly more noisy than others tested, it can also double as a travel hair dryer due to its smaller build. The tool was also easiest to maneuver and comfortable to hold, though it was heavier than other models and more effort was required for proper placement and removal of the attachment. "It's the right size and doesn't look like a travel dryer until you fold the handle — I like that it could do double duty for home and away." The winner of the GH Beauty Lab's travel hair dryer test, Drybar’s top-of-the-line dual voltage model delivers fast-drying power in a portable package.
Its humdrum performance was not for a lack of heat, either—a big difference could be felt between the heat settings, with the medium being about right and the hot one feeling too intense. I wanted this beautiful dryer to be a star performer like the celebrity hair stylist who branded it, as it’s easily accessible at Target and comes in sleek white-and-gold packaging. Sabina (she/her) is the director of the Beauty, Health & Sustainability Lab at the Good Housekeeping Institute, where she has overseen skincare, haircare and makeup testing since 2012. She also reviews applications, substantiates claims and evaluates products for the GH Seal and the Beauty Awards and Sustainability Awards programs. In chemistry from Ithaca College and more than 16 years of experience working in the pharmaceutical and personal care industries. This easy-to-handle dryer from Bio Ionic was the least noisy of the GH Beauty Lab's top performers, according to sound level measurements.
“Cute and compact, yet powerful and well made, it's also light and nice to hold,” one expert evaluator raved. “I like pretty much everything about it," another said, but it does lack a diffuser. Power-packed yet gentler than other models, Bio Ionic’s hairdryer was mild on both hair and scalp in GH Beauty Lab testing, key for damaged or fragile fine hair.
"In lower quality hair dryers the power won't be as strong but more importantly it may not be great at regulating its own heating element [resulting in] damaging your ends and even burning your scalp." Most hair dryers are effective at blowing hot air toward your head—sometimes quite fast—in order to speed along your hairstyling. It’s the small differences between models that can make a big difference overall, particularly with daily use. These days, you can easily spend upwards of $100, $200, even $300 + on a hair dryer.
Corinne Sullivan is an Editor at Cosmopolitan, where she covers a variety of beats, including lifestyle, entertainment, relationships, shopping, and more. She can tell you everything you need to know about the love lives of A-listers, the coziest bedsheets, and the sex toys actually worth your $$$. The Hot Tools Pro Artist White Gold Digital Salon Dryer, the Panasonic Nanoe EH-NA65, and the Panasonic Nanoe EH-NA67 were all slower, heavier, and more expensive than the Rusk W8less.
