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The perfect do-it-all tool whether your hair is short, long, thick or thin. Groin Trimmer
For anyone who struggles to blow dry their own hair at home, hair dryer brushes take the guesswork out of the equation. These brilliant 2-in-1 tools effectively style and dry your hair at once, combining the styling power of a round brush and the drying power of a hair dryer in one tool. Bristles detangle and smooth hair while heat dries it, and the result is voluminous, frizz-free shine in a single step. But there are a multitude of dryer brushes to choose from, each with its own unique features.
In the Good Housekeeping Institute Beauty Lab, our expert testers evaluated 10 products at home and in our Lab for ease of use, performance, drying time and more. After evaluating the results from our testing (including nearly 11,000 temperature readings!), we rounded up the best of the best.
Our pros test and vet hair styling products every day, from styling tools like the best straightening irons and hair straightening brushes to top-rated hair dryers, hair brushes and more — so we know what makes a good hair tool. In our most recent test of hair dryer brushes, For more information on what makes a great hair dryer brush from our Beauty Lab pros, scroll to the bottom of this article. And if you want more information on how to get your best hair at home, check out our guide to the best hair tools and how to use them.
Get a shiny, salon-caliber blow-out at home with this easy-to-hold Amika blowdryer brush. 100% of testers agreed this brush was best for creating perfect style and volume on all hair types. Testers found this gives a pro-level blow dry while boosting hair’s fullness, all while having gentle heat. "I also liked that they use two types of bristles (short and long) as it grabbed the strands of hair and glided through," said one.
This pick has the longest cord for easy styling and was the only winner with wrap for storage. It's also the quietest hair dryer brush we tested, although we do wish it had a cool setting to help lock in styles.
With over 330,000 Amazon reviews, Revlon's cult fave One-Step Hair Dryer and Volumizer lived up to its reputation: It achieved the fastest rate of drying hair in Beauty Lab testing. The brush's shape allows for smoothing and glides easily through even the roughest hair textures. “I liked how the brush head was large, which allowed it to dry more hair at once,” a tester reported.
“It was good for creating smooth, straight hairstyles,” although it gets exceedingly hot during use, so be careful not to use it on soaking wet hair and use alongside a heat protectant. The tool also ranked highly for having simple-to-follow instructions and boosting hair's shine.
READ OUR FULL REVIEW: The Five-Star Revlon One-Step Hair Dryer Brush Is a Total Game Changer
Most blow dryer brushes are already perfect for curly-haired people since they combine smoothing and blow drying into one streamlined step, but if you want to embrace your texture, this pick is unique because it allows you to style natural hair straight or curly, thanks to diverse attachments and a swiveling base that also lets the tool function as a traditional hair dryer/diffuser combo.
The brand claims the tool is less damaging than other tools, and we found it operates around 183ºF on average. One Beauty Lab analysis confirmed it had one of the fastest drying times we've seen. One tester with thick, curly hair loved the smoothing brush and found that styles lasted for days. It's expensive, but we think the versatility makes it worth it.
READ OUR FULL REVIEW: Is the Shark FlexStyle Hair Dryer Really a 'Dyson Airwrap Dupe'?
In Beauty Lab evaluations, we found that this efficient hair dryer brush had the gentlest heat among the products we tested, reaching a maximum temperature of 167°F over five minutes of use, nearly 100ºF lower than the competition — meaning it will prevent hair from getting overly exposed to heat while still effectively styling.
The brush’s narrow barrel and smaller surface area make it ideal for fine or short to medium-length hair. Weighing in at just under a pound, one tester found it comfortable to hold and that the brush combed easily through her hair. “I got great volume with this, yet my hair felt really smooth — it was comparable to a blow-out from a salon,” another marveled. “Much better results than using a regular dryer and separate brush,” another user noted.
True to its name, Hot Tools won the gold for effortlessly combing through and speedily styling even dense, coarse or curly strands. The controls were also the simplest to use compared with the other models, thanks to a rotating temperature control with three heat settings and vent platforms for faster drying on even super thick and curly strands.
In Beauty Lab evaluations, 100% of expert testers found that it styled hair fast and combed through strands with ease, although it's among the heaviest dryer we tested, so be prepared to put some elbow grease into perfecting your 'do. “I was surprised by the speed and how fast my hair went from wet to dry,” a user commented.
In Lab tests, this brush got the highest scores for leaving hair looking shiny and frizz-free. The mixed pattern bristles give hair height and body; the longer plastic bristles detangle hair while the shorter, bushier bristles smooth hair into a glossy sheet.
However, this tool got the hottest during use in Lab tests, so be sure you use a heat protectant and use on partially-dried hair. Our testers also found there was a bit of a learning curve when it came to understanding and maneuvering this tool, and we wish there was a cool shot button.
In addition to two 1.2-inch barrels and two 1.6-inch barrels for curling, the dryer comes with useful attachments for blowing out hair straight, including a pre-styling dryer, a firm smoothing brush, a soft smoothing brush and a round volumizing brush. The paddle brushes use Coanda technology to guide air flow down the shaft of the hair, mimicking a salon blowout.
What makes it even more amazing? It combines powerful airflow with controlled heat to dry your hair as it styles with less damage, making it a favorite amongst GH Beauty Lab pros. One GH editor with thick, curly hair says, "the Airwrap is the only hair dryer brush I can use to keep my hair straight and less damaged than traditional counterparts."
READ OUR FULL REVIEW: We Tried Dyson's New Airwrap and the Results Were Surprising
If your arm gets tired from pulling hair round and round, snag this rotating pick that does the work for you. The smaller-than-average 1 ½-inch barrel is perfect for shorter styles, and the spinning mechanism rotates in two directions to create natural-looking curls and waves on dry hair in between washes. While we haven't tested this pick in the Lab, the brand claims the ceramic technology dries damp strands and adds lasting shine.
In our most recent hair dryer brush tests, we evaluated 10 oval dryer brushes with Lab tests and at-home usability tests. In the Lab, we assessed drying speed and air flow and used thermocouples to measure each tool's temperature — our Lab pros logged 10,980 temperature readings as part of this test.
We also measured quantitative factors like weight, size and cord length, and partnered with Quiet Mark, a third-party certifier, to assess each tool's loudness. At home, our expert testers evaluated the dryer brushes and filled out a detailed survey on ease of use, performance and overall satisfaction. After parsing through the data from 784 questions gathered from 49 questionnaires, we found the very best hair dryer brushes you can buy.
✔️ Heat settings: Multiple heat settings are ideal to work on a range of hair types and textures; lower heat settings are great for fine or damaged hair while higher heat settings are good on healthy or thicker, coarser hair types. Our Beauty Lab pros recommend a tool with a cool shot to help seal in styles as well.
✔️ Bristles: Most hair dryer brushes are made with either pin bristles or boar-type bristles, or a combination of both. Pin bristles do a good job at detangling hair, while boar bristles grip and smooth hair (though they can sometimes add too much tension, we found in Lab tests). If you're looking to smooth out frizz or make hair look super shiny, look for a dryer brush with boar-style bristles. If you're more focused on detangling, pin bristles are great. In expert evaluations, some testers liked bristles of varying lengths to grab every last hair.
✔️ Cord length: The length of cord you'll need depends on where you'll be styling and if there's an outlet nearby. For ultimate flexibility, look for a professional-length cord of at least eight feet. Less expensive models tend to have shorter cords, but that may limit your ability to style freely — you may not have an outlet near a mirror!
✔️ Ease of use: In our tests, ease of use, comfort when styling and intuitiveness of the controls are all important considerations. Look for a tool that feels balanced in your hand, easy to grip and isn't too heavy.
Like any hot tool, they can be if you don't prep hair properly. Exposing hair to excessive heat for long periods of time can cause damage to the structure of hair, so to prevent excessive damage, our Beauty Lab pros recommend coating hair in a heat protectant before use and letting hair partially air dry before using a hair dryer brush.
Good Housekeeping Institute Deputy Editor Jessica Teich has over 10 years of experience formally researching, testing and writing about haircare products, from hair tools (like hair dryer brushes, curling irons and wands and flat irons) to styling tips and hair products. An authority on (and a guinea pig for testing) new-to-market tools on curly hair, she regularly teams up with GH's Beauty Lab to synthesize its data in putting together product reviews on the very best haircare on the market, according to testing.
For this story, she worked closely with Danusia Wnek, a senior chemist in the Beauty, Health & Sustainability Lab, who has a B.S. in chemistry from St. John’s University, an M.S. in pharmaceutical sciences with concentration in cosmetic science from the University of Cincinnati and 10 years of experience in the personal care industry including formulation, product development, claim evaluation and efficacy testing. Danusia has spent seven years researching and developing testing protocols for haircare products for the Good Housekeeping Institute, and led testing for GH's most recent hair dryer brush test, providing robust data and results on usage and claims from expert and Lab tests.
Jessica (she/her) is a deputy editor at the Good Housekeeping Institute and a longtime product tester, reviewer, writer and editor of beauty and lifestyle content. She has over a decade of industry experience, previously as beauty editor at USA Today's Reviewed where she launched the Beauty vertical and tested hundreds of products and has covered trends for publications like The Boston Globe and The New York Times. You can usually find her sorting through piles of beauty products — and testing the best ones on camera.
Danusia (she/her) is a senior chemist in the Beauty, Health and Sustainability Lab at the Good Housekeeping Institute where she evaluates haircare, skincare, cosmetics and beauty tools. She holds a B.S. in chemistry from St. John’s University and a M.S. in pharmaceutical sciences with concentration in cosmetic science from the University of Cincinnati. Danusia has over 10 years of experience in the personal care industry including formulation, product development, claim evaluation and efficacy testing.
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