Most hair dryers are effective at blowing hot air toward your head—sometimes quite fast—in order to speed along your hair styling from showering to whatever’s next. It’s the small differences between models that can make a big difference overall, particularly with daily use. After putting in 20 hours of research and spending nearly 50 hours testing 39 dryers, we’ve found that some dryers are far more pleasant to hold and use than others. Because it provides an excellent experience for the price, we think the Rusk W8less Professional 2000 Watt Dryer is the best choice.
Speed and heat are the only features that matter for drying your hair efficiently, and with a 55 mph airflow that exceeds 245 degrees Fahrenheit, the Rusk W8less Professional 2000 Watt Dryer is one of the fastest and hottest dryers we tested. It weighs less than a pound, it has an 8-foot cord (one of the longest we found), it’s notably comfortable to hold, and overall it has the best combination of features we deem important—and that’s the case by far, even when you compare it with dryers that cost hundreds of dollars. The Rusk W8less comes with a concentrator, which is helpful for straightening hair. It does not come with a diffuser, however; if you use one for curly hair, consider our budget pick, which is faster but heavier and doesn’t get nearly as hot as the W8less.
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. The 6-foot cord, though shorter than those on our other picks, is longer than those on most other inexpensive hair dryers. The buttons are easy to use, but the cool-shot button is a little small and harder to hold down than the cool-shot button on our top pick. The InfinitiPro comes with both a diffuser and a concentrator.
If you are willing to splurge on a dryer, you might consider the Dyson Supersonic Hair Dryer. It has consistently been our favorite to use since we first tested it in 2016. With airflow at 88 mph and a temperature surpassing 245 °F (the hottest temperature our weather meter could measure), the Supersonic doesn’t dry hair any faster than our pick, but it is more pleasant to use in almost every way due to its unique design. The motor sits in the handle, making the nozzle shorter and easier to maneuver. The handle doesn’t vibrate at all, which wasn’t true of other “luxury” models we tested. It has a long, 9-foot cord, and it’s less grating noise-wise than other dryers. It also comes with two magnetically attaching concentrators and a diffuser, all of which are exceptionally easy to add or remove mid-blowout.
Another spendy dryer, 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. The entire corded machine has an exceptionally large footprint compared with most other dryers: It weighs about 10 pounds in total and is the size of a small microwave. The hose-attached handheld wand alone weighs more than our heavier dryer picks (around 2 pounds), but we found that this is not terribly problematic because very little motion is required to use it.
