This is why you should add a new Dyson hair tool to your Christmas wish-list

One of my biggest flexes in life is that I own the holy trinity of Dyson hair styling tools. The Supersonic hair dryer, the Corrale hair straightener and the Airwrap multi styler. They’re all mine. As a beauty editor, it’s my job to try out the products on the market, and believe me, I’ve tried thousands – hair styling including. Why am I so obsessed with Dyson’s? Well, read ahead.

I like to refer to Dyson as the messiah of hair styling. In my mind, there is a clear ‘before and after’ with Dyson when it comes to how hairstyling as a science, art and industry has evolved. For many years before Dyson, hair styling tools were key to achieving everything from daily looks to intricate styles. But with the brand’s entrance to the industry, we saw a boost in the science and care across the product sector. And like everything good in the world, Dyson’s rise in popularity and influence drove improvements across the whole industry, with competitors keen to keep up with the new-found standards of hair styling tool excellence.

Now, with Christmas around the corner, a question that I get asked almost daily is what I have on my wishlist and why. Last year, the Airwrap was my only wish, and this time around, now that I have all three in the holy trinity, I am more confident than ever as to why these tools are the perfect gift for the holidays. So, whether you’re looking for the best option to add to your wishlist, or that will complete your hair styling collection, here is a comprehensive, expert overview as to why you can’t go past Dyson.

For the sake of order, I’ll go chronologically, starting with the original, the genesis, the Supersonic. A literal revolution within a haircare tool, the Supersonic came to innovate a category that we didn’t even knew needed innovation – and to me that’s the key as to why it succeeded so enormously. After all, we’re talking about just a hot blast of air, right? Well, no, that’s the thing. With the Supersonic, Dyson took a product that had reached status quo and made it better, through a redesign in ergonomics, and less damaging, through a new approach in hair health and heat.
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What’s the difference between a Dyson Supersonic and a normal hairdryer? First, the touch, feel and weight. With the barrel design and the motor in the handle, it’s much smaller than traditional hairdryers and it doesn’t present such a strain on the muscles of the arm. Secondly, it doesn't heat that much, which in some cases would trigger the thought “but isn’t more, better?’, and the answer to that is that it isn’t. More heat isn’t better for the hair, it’s actually worse. And in the long run, it’s a recipe for damage.

The kicker? The attachments. Like all good engineers, Dyson knows that creating a superb machine isn’t enough, it needs the perfect add-ons. Hence, the attachments. Each is designed with a different purpose within hairstyling, and are part of what sets apart Supersonic from the traditional hair dryers. Sure, you have your traditional diffuser or concentrator like others, but attachments like the flyaway attachment, the gentle air attachment and the wide tooth comb one are patented Dyson technology that allows for the product to perform even further.

The Dyson version of a hair straightener, The Corrale came into the world with two main innovations: its fully cordless design and its flexible heating plates. In order to start detailing these aspects, let’s start with the straightforward benefit of being cordless.

Straightening your hair is a high-performance sport. You need the strength to deal with stubborn textures, precision to make sure you don’t miss any strand, strategy to make best use of your time and flexibility to reach the whole circumference of your head. Add a cord to this and it becomes a complicated matter. What did Dyson do? Took away the cord – easy.

Now, onto the bigger of the two innovations, we find the flexible heating plates. Why does this matter? Or what does this even mean? Well, instead of traditional solid hot plates, Dyson’s technology, which is unique in the world, allows for the plates to bend and better encase the hair while it’s passing through the straightener, allowing the ergonomic design to gather and straighten the hair, while needing less heat and causing less breakage.

While the Supersonic marked the ‘before and after’ of the hair styling tool world in haircare, the Airwrap created a whole new category that didn’t exist before. In what can be considered as the best of both worlds, the Airwrap combines the hair drying process with the hair styling process. Allowing for styles that range from the smooth straight (thanks to its smoothing comb attachment) to the best Pamela Anderson inspired curls that I’ve ever been able to style on anyone (thanks to the barrel attachments).

The combination of air-flow technology with the mechanical engineering of the attachments really permits for the hair to be styled while dried with less heat and little to no mechanical stress or damage on the hair. But this particular point brings me to the big question – do you actually need all three products?

The answer to that question is both yes and no, but mostly yes. Here’s the thing.

While some of the ‘functions’ or ‘styles’ of the tools can be achieved with other devices, at the end of the day, each of them has a speciality that you can’t really replicate with the other. For example, you could argue that you can both make curls with the Airwrap and the Corrale, but in reality, the result will be much different. When it comes to hair drying, you can achieve this with the dryer attachment in the Airwrap, but the Supersonic is stronger, which in turn makes it faster – because that’s it’s specialty.

To me, my biggest discovery since attaining all three tools is how they work together. How seamlessly and organically their designs allow for them to work in synchronicity and allow for the best styling I’ve ever been able to do. I have incredibly frizzy hair and my best trick is to mix the Corrale with the Supersonic in a way that is only possible thanks to the Corrale’s cordless design and the Supersonic’s lightweight ergonomic grab.

While yes, you could do your blow drying with the Airwrap and potentially your curling with the Corrale, at the end of the day, the best results will be obtained by combining these expertly designed tools together. Take it from someone who previously had them on his Christmas wish list. Now, what’s on this year’s list? Well, I’ve been eyeing the Dyson Purifying Humidifier fans for a while now, as the winter’s colder climate wreaks havoc in my skin, and I’m dying for the soon-to-be-released Dyson Zone, but I guess I’ll have to wait to see what the holidays bring around.