Each armed with 10 or more years of experience, they told us exactly how to grade the dryers: The variety and usefulness of its features, how easy it was to use, and its overall drying performance, as well as how our hairstyle looked after each blowout. On its highest setting it measured 88 decibels in our test, so it’s not the quietest design on the market, and it can feel a little heavy in hand after a while.

It has a long life motor, with digital control interface to increase the dryers performance, granting a longer lifetime than other professional hairdryers. Scope out our travel-sized hair dryer recommendation, the SRI Dry Q, to learn more about our pick for the perfect journey-ready dryer.As soon as we picked it up, we were surprised at how light it was and it never felt heavy or made our arms ache as we dried our hair. If you have textured or long, thick hair, you may want to opt for a hair dryer with a higher wattage, fine, thinning, or short hair can get away with lower.

These include a diffuser, concentrator nozzle and brush-style head – the latter of which is ideal for blow drying hair straight and adding bounce. Filters: 2 washable, magnetised, micro-perforated filters prevent even the smallest dirt particles from settling in the motor and reaching the hair and scalp. From best-in-class concealer to the black pants you need for work, check out all of our InStyle Picks content. STYLING - iQ has exceptional airflow and pressure, so we highly recommend a unique drying setting when styling to ensure hair protection and optimise the performance of the hair dryer.There's no better way to learn the ins and outs of a hair styling tool than by asking the very people who use them every day. The Pattern Blow Dryer comes with brush, wide tooth comb, diffuser, and concentrator nozzle and is great for curly hair. It comes in a blue tin box with a diffuser, two concentrator nozzles and a stand included and at 295g, it weighs less than a can of Coke – compare this to the 659g Dyson Supersonic or the 730g Shark STYLE iQ Ionic.

We drew on the decades-long experience of four professional hairstylists and used their wealth of first-hand knowledge to learn the specific features and factors that the best hair dryers offer.The Helios feels nicely balanced and lightweight and, with its premium finish, we can see why GHD is a popular brand name. The pro-grade dryer comes with an ionizer switch at the top that lets you customize your blowout to your needs. The buttons’ placement feels crowded, making it easy to accidentally adjust your settings mid-blowout. Weighing only 294 g, it is ergonomic and compact because it is designed to prevent arm and shoulder muscle problems typical of the professional. Among the downsides, though, were the slightly confusing buttons, which don't clearly indicate the temperature, and a delay on the cold shot button, as well as the attachments.

Innovative Microfilter: Prevents even the tiniest of particles from entering the motor to promote hair cleanliness and extend motor durability. According to Stewart, if you have heat damage, try drying hair on a low setting with warm or cool air instead of with hot air on a high setting. For a start, you need to make sure you have the right attachments to suit your hair type - such as a suitable diffuser to calm frizzy hair, or a concentrator nozzle to achieve your style. Anyone who uses a dryer daily will appreciate the tool's longevity (an A/C motor that lasts 2,000 hours), its efficiency (the dual-filtration system drops energy use by 70 percent), and its impressive multitude of settings (12 heat, speed and ion settings).Timothy put the hair dryers to task in his London salon on a range of his private clients with Type 1 (straight), Type 2 (wavy), Type 3 (curly) and Type 4 (kinky or coily) hair types. Designed as an alternative to a hair dryer and brush, this combines the two and worked well when finishing a client’s bob,” says Timothy.