Best Tourmaline Hair Dryer
The best hair dryer: Get a salon-worthy blowout at home
It’s important to carefully consider which make and model dryer is right for you. Using a hair dryer regularly can lead to heat damage, breakage, and generally weak strands; thankfully, this can all be avoided by investing in a top-quality product designed with your hair type in mind. We’ve created this guide to help you identify the best hair dryer for your hair type, along with some styling tips and product suggestions. Say goodbye to showing up with wet hair, and get ready to start feeling cool and confident whenever you leave the house.
It’s important to understand how hair dryers work and what features to look for before embarking on a shopping trip. You’ll want to know the various heating types and how they’ll affect your hair texture before purchasing. You’ll also want to consider any additional attachments, heat settings, and build qualities that will add up to the best hair dryer (and hair day!).
How does the dryer heat up?
tourmaline Hair dryers utilize different materials, methods, and processes to safely create the right amount of force and heat needed to dry hair—usually, dryers can be classified as ionic, ceramic, or titanium.
Ionic hair dryers are very popular and work by electronically generating and shooting out negatively charged ions to combat the positive ions that make up the moisture in damp hair. This attack on moisture is powerful and speedily removes excess water, closes hair follicles, and tames unwanted frizz. Ionic heat can be too intense for some hair types, but it’s great for thick or curly hair. Some blow dryers provide a switch so you can toggle between ionic and non-ionic modes. Tourmaline dryers are essentially ionic with an added boost. Tourmaline is a semi-precious metal and, when used as a coating, can non-electronically create additional negative ions for an even faster drying process.
Porcelain or ceramic hair dryers are non-ionic and use these materials to generate steady heat. Ceramic and porcelain retain and regulate heat particularly well without getting too hot or wavering between temperatures. Using this method is a gentler process than using ion heat, a much-needed feature for already damaged hair. Ceramic dryers can increase volume and reduce dryness in thin, fine hair, but might leave something to be desired for those with fuller locks.
Titanium dryers are also typically non-ionic, and when added to the internal components of a hair dryer, can improve consistency and heat distribution. It’s a lightweight material, great for travel dryers or those with a lot of hair. Holding up a heavy hair dryer can be taxing on your arm muscles, especially if your long hair takes a while to dry. Keep in mind that though high-end titanium dryers are great for regulating heat and preventing damage, they increase the temperature more than other elements. Lower-end options risk blasting high temperatures resulting in further damage to fine, brittle hair.
However, if you are working with tight coils that take a while to dry, it’s important not to expose the hair to too much direct heat. Natural, tight curls might suffer if ionic heat is used to dry the entirety of the head. Instead, look for a dryer that has non-ionic and ionic options, so you can utilize both features for a perfectly preserved curl.
It’s also a good idea to look for a dryer with multiple heat settings; when in doubt, go low (heat) and slow (diffuser) for the healthiest drying option, especially if you have a little extra time set aside. The best hair dryer overall for curly hair will be equipped with ionic capabilities, multiple heat settings, diffuser attachment, and a cold shot button to seal in shine after hair has dried.
If you’re feeling confident and want to try out a tourmaline hair dryer for a boost of volume and shine, we suggest the Neuro by John Paul Mitchell. It has a 1,875-watt motor, four heat settings, a concentrator nozzle, and a collapsible silicone diffuser, making it certainly the best hair dryer for fine hair. All power and heat settings are displayed on an LED screen and easily controllable. This model also comes in a light option, weighing just over a pound, for those who are always on the go.
Curly hair can be thin and fine follicles can be plentiful, which is why it’s also important to consider the best hair dryers for thin or thick hair. Of course, hair type can be described in many ways, so you’ll have to decide which feature of your hair is a top priority and go from there.
Thin hair should certainly stay away from ionic dryers and focus on high-wattage ceramic or porcelain options. Multiple attachments are great for thin hair; diffusers can add a little extra volume at the end of a drying process, concentrator nozzles can powerfully direct the hair when paired with the appropriate brush, and combs can provide immediate sleekness.
Finally, if you have any of the above hair types, but it’s suffered in the past either from heat, over-styling, or bleach, you want to put all your attention on preservation and repair, especially when it comes to styling tools. Just like with fine, thin hair, high wattage with multiple heat settings is key—but you should also investigate an infrared hair dryer. The heat produced by infrared light is less damaging than heat produced by coils because it dries the hair from the inside out, protecting the layers that have accrued the most damage.