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Hair dryer reviews

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Last updated: 02 August 2024
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A hair dryer is an essential piece of hair care equipment for anyone who wants to tame their mane quickly, effectively and with minimal fuss. 

Our expert tester gives each hair dryer in our review a thorough workout to help find the models that:

  • dry quickly
  • offer a range of airflow speeds and temperatures
  • are quietest.

We also put the hair dryers through a salon trial with a professional hairdresser to get an idea of how easy they are to use.

Some hair dryers in our recent test did not display all of the safety markings as required by law. These have been given a CHOICE Expert Rating of 0% with specific failings noted in the bad points. Though we have alerted the manufacturers/distributors and the ACCC (where the distributors failed to respond), you may still find these dryers in some retailers. We don’t recommend purchasing them.

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Brand

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List of brands we tested in this review.

    Price

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    This is the manufacturer's recommended retail price.

    enter value/s in increments of 1 between 19 and 649

    Recommended products

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    Member only

    This test score is for members only. Join now to unlock our expert results.

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    Performance score

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    Made up of drying rate (50%), temperature range (25%), airflow speed range (20%), noise score (average of measured volume and noise annoyance) (5%). A pass/fail drop test is also performed.

    enter value/s in increments of i between 61 and 84

    Ease of use score

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    This covers setup and general operation of each hair dryer. We assess the thoroughness of each manual followed by ease of holding, ease of reading and understanding the labels, ease of operating controls and attaching/removing concentrator nozzles included with each dryer.

    enter value/s in increments of i between 40 and 87

    Drying rate score

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    We measure how quickly each hair dryer will dry your hair. To do this we position and direct each dryer 15cm away from a moist cloth, run them for 60 seconds then weigh the cloth to determine how much moisture has been dried out of it. We repeat this test on the lowest and highest settings, three times each for a total of six drying rate tests per dryer.

    enter value/s in increments of i between 57 and 97

    Diffuser attachment

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    Ideal for drying curly hair.

      Cool shot

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      Provides a burst of cool air and is supposed to be good for setting a style in place.

        Included in this review

        Members-only access
        • Recommended
        • CHOICE Expert Rating
        • Performance score
        • Ease of use score
        • Drying rate score
        • Airflow speed score
        • Temperature range score
        • Salon expert assessment
        • Sound level (dB)
        • Speed switch type
        • Good points
        • Bad points
        • Expert salon assessment comments
        • Availability
        • Price
        • Number of speed settings
        • Number of heat settings
        • Number of concentrator attachments
        • Diffuser attachment
        • Cool shot
        • Turbo
        • Ionic
        • Ceramic
        • Removable intake filter
        • Other technology claims
        • Heat switch type
        • Cool shot switch type
        • Other switches
        • Cord length (m)
        • Dimensions (mm, L x W x D)
        • Weight (g)
        • Rated power (W)
        • Country of origin

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