17 Best Hair Dryers of 2024 Top-Rated Blow Dryers

Table Of Content

• Best for Loose Curls: Bio Ionic 10X Ultralight Speed Dryer
• What are the different types of hair dryers?
• Best for a Time Crunch: Gama Italy IQ Perfetto Professional Hair Dryer
• The 31 Best Hair Dryers for Every Texture and Budget, According to Glamour Editors
• Q: Do Expensive Hair Dryers Really Make a Difference?

It works on all hair types and reviewers say it produces salon-worthy results. This small but mighty hair dryer produces 1,875 watts of power to give you a salon-worthy blowout in minutes. It has an ergonomic handle for comfortable styling and a 5-foot cord, meaning you don't have to stand next to an outlet as you style. The hair dryer has two heat and speed settings and is powered by electricity.

Best for Loose Curls: Bio Ionic 10X Ultralight Speed Dryer

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. That's where our Good Housekeeping Institute Beauty Lab scientists come in, rigorously testing hair dryers in the Lab on human hair samples and consumer testers to assess their attributes and performance. The RevAir is unlike any other hair-drying, heat-styling tool we’ve tested. For people with Type 3 or 4 curl patterns especially, this vacuum-like device is gentle on fragile strands and can cut down total drying time significantly. One tester, who usually requires two back-to-back appointments with a professional stylist at Drybar, now achieves similar drying and smoothing results with the RevAir in as little as 20 minutes.

What are the different types of hair dryers?

For more great additions to your grooming routine, check out our picks for the best men's hair clippers and the best electric razors. Unlike Dyson products, which rarely go on sale, our shopping team often catches Shark products at a discount. Keep tabs on the SpeedStyle, especially around big shopping moments, and you may be able to snag it at a budget-friendly price.

Best for a Time Crunch: Gama Italy IQ Perfetto Professional Hair Dryer

Testers loved its smaller, easy-to-store size and that it left their hair less frizzy. They gave it top marks for its easy-to-reach controls and comfortable shape, and both Lab assessments and consumers found it to be quiet. A game-changer on the market, this one-of-a-kind Dyson design (the motor is in the handle!) dried hair faster than any model in the history of GH Beauty Lab hair dryer testing.

Best Hair Dryer Technology

“It’s a powerful dryer but also super gentle on the hair to create less damage and frizz.” It features a salon-strength motor with a concentrated 75-mile-per-hour airflow to dry thick hair in a flash. The hair dryer has two heat and speed settings that can work on all types of hair, from fine and delicate strands to thick and curly ones. In a perfect world, we'd all indulge in a blowout from a pro on a daily basis.

The Best Hair Dryer For You, According to Experts - Buy Side from WSJ - The Wall Street Journal

The Best Hair Dryer For You, According to Experts - Buy Side from WSJ.

Posted: Tue, 02 Apr 2024 07:00:00 GMT [source]

If you don’t care about weight, consider the InfinitiPro by Conair 1875-Watt Salon Performance AC Motor Styling Tool. Commonly found in drugstores, this dryer produces airflow that’s faster (65 mph) than that of our top pick and almost as hot (205 °F). At 1.3 pounds, however, it may feel heavy after you spend a couple of minutes holding it above your head.

Jessica Cruel blow drying her natural hair with the Dyson Airwrap straightening brush. Angela Trakoshis after using the Shark hair dryer and attachments with smooth, blown-out hair. A well-made hair dryer from a reputable brand will generally last longer than a cheap one. While a mid-range hair dryer typically lasts 3-5 years, a high-end hair dryer can last up to 7 years.

Olivia Garden High Performance Professional Hair Dryer

The Hyper Air comes with two attachments, the IQ 2-in-1 Concentrator and the IQ Styling Brush. The concentrator includes a dial to toggle between wide and narrow airflow, and users can rotate the attachment itself to ensure that the airflow is always in line with a brush while blowing out hair. A diffuser is also available, although it's sold separately, which was disappointing.

With a 22-minute blow dry completed on fine, color-treated hair, the dryer delivered a sleek, salon-quality blowout with no heat damage reported. 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.

“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. Options are seemingly endless on the attachment front, but your hair type will drive your decisions there too. The only thing we didn’t like was the dryer’s cord, which was surprisingly thick, with a large, rectangular power strip right in the middle.

Saunders and Fitzpatrick recommend keeping the smoothing nozzle on to create a silky-smooth look that makes your hair feel light as air. To keep the brush clean, simply remove any excess hair and let the cord hang loose so it doesn’t get damaged. With a super chic vortex design that helps to control airflow and a matte caramel colorway, the Pattern’s good looks are only the beginning of its story as a curl-enhancing hot tool.

You can buy a universal-fit version of the DevaFuser for any attachment-compatible hair dryer. In our tests, the airflow from the InfinitiPro by Conair 1875-Watt Salon Performance AC Motor Styling Tool was faster than that of our top pick at 65 mph, but at 205 °F it was not as hot as the Rusk W8less (which reached over 245 °F). If you have curly hair and prefer using a diffuser to dry it, you have to buy one separately (though it’s best to buy a hair dryer that comes with one).

It can easily fit in a carry-on bag without taking up precious space thanks to an ultra-compact design and ingenious foldable handle. “The new technology [found in modern hair dryers] is superb and really does make a difference when it comes to keeping your hair healthy,” she says. Former beauty and style editor Ashley Phillips first discovered this magical dryer through her roommate, and she swears there’s nothing better for straighter strands. “It works wonders on my naturally straight hair, too, leaving it soft, shiny, and looking like I just got a salon blowout,” she said.

The solo hairdryer is currently sold out across your favorite retailers, but for an extra $30, you can order the limited-edition kit. Instead of three attachments, this set comes with five that stays cool to the touch, even when styling. You'll also receive a paddle brush and wide-tooth comb to perfect your coif, and a sturdy storage case. You've probably seen the Dyson Supersonic before, and as cool-looking as it is, you probably thought it wasn't worth the hefty price tag — and boy, were you wrong.

It didn’t take much effort to get the hair dryer up and running — it’s designed in the traditional way in terms of the shape, button placement, and cord length. We used the highest airflow setting to get the power we needed to zhuzh our fine hair, but kept the heat setting between two and three (although we did try out the hottest setting and it was, indeed, quite hot). Within 10 minutes — even on a low heat setting — our hair was totally dry, smooth, and fluffy in the best way possible. Taking home top honors, the GAMA IQ2 Perfetto hair dryer is just about, well, perfetto. With a promise to dry hair 30 percent faster, the IQ2 is designed intelligently, automatically going on standby when placed on its smart pad, outfitted with a micro-perforated filter and temperature sensor, and accompanied by magnetic nozzles. Our InStyle editor who tested this model has type 3B/3C coarse hair, with a mix of curls and coils that have only been relaxed once years ago, and found that the dryer took just under 15 minutes to diffuse and set her curls.

The bright yellow pro tool is beloved by hair stylists and us normal folk alike for its shine capabilities (thanks to the fact that it’s an ionic dryer), and the fact that the heat settings (three of them) don't scorch hair. It features three heat and two speed settings for a customizable drying experience. For this story, writers Caitlyn Martyn and Alyssa Kaplan relied on their experience as beauty writers and product reviewers. Caitlyn has wavy, fine hair and has tested three hair dryers in the last 12 months. She uses both Dyson dryers interchangeably in her routine and thinks they’re absolutely worth the hype.