I tried the latest hi-tech hair stylers – my best purchase dried my locks in minutes

Do you WANT dry, smooth and sexy hair within minutes after showering?

Dyson's long-awaited Airstrait hair straightener promises you exactly that.

Tara Ledden tests three sets of high-tech hair productsCredit: Stewart Williams

The £449.99 tool launched in Britain last week, although it has been available in the US since May, and comes after hair heavyweights GHD launched a similar product in 2023, with equally lofty claims.

Fast hair straightening gadgets are big business now. . . sales of multistylers at Boots have quadrupled in the last 12 months.

But when it comes to long-lasting, kink-free locks, just how good are these gadgets?

Beauty editor Tara Ledden, who describes her hair as 'relatively straight and low-maintenance', puts the big guns and a cheaper alternative to the test and scores them out of five.

BLOW (DRY) THE BUDGET

Dyson Airstrait hair straightener, £449.99, dyson.co.uk

The Dyson Airstrait is slightly larger than the average hair straightenerCredit: Stewart Williams

These hair straighteners have two modes with three heat and three speed settingsCredit: supplied

Dimensions: 60mm x 330mm x 41mm.

Weight: 0.935kg.

Current: 1600w. Two modes with three heat and three speed settings.

Cord: 198 cm.

Claims: No heat damage, less frizz and flyaways, protects natural shine.

TARA SAYS: It's bulky compared to your average hair straightener, but it's as light as a feather – even though it has a huge chunky plug that won't fit into a traditional socket against my floor-level plinth.

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It is five times the size of a normal plug and has a built-in circuit breaker.

It's much quieter than your conventional hairdryer and switches off automatically when you put it down, which is a great development.

It is just as powerful as my Dyson Supersonic, the hair dryer I use every day.

Before straightening, I clamped the plates together to use the blow dry function. It's the only one of the three I tested with this option and you can still use it as a blow dryer if you don't want to straighten your hair.

You can also get much closer to the roots than the other two for a clean finish.

It took me a few times to get used to it as there are a lot of settings to choose from, but once I did, my hair went from towel dry to bone dry in two or three passes, the fastest of the ones I tried.

Once dry, my hair felt silky soft, as if I had been professionally blow-dried.

Or like I dried my hair and then straightened it, which would probably take me half an hour total, but it was much faster than that, about ten minutes from start to finish, for my full head.

I can imagine that it is a godsend on holiday, when my hair starts to frizz due to the humidity.

Not only is it one less tool to carry, but thanks to its sleek design and handy license plate lock, it takes up about as much space as a pair of slippers in a budget airline suitcase.

PRONUNCIATION: The dual-action dryer is the only one that can actually reach the roots.

The results are similar to using straighteners on my hair, but the preset temperatures may not be high enough to fully straighten curly or frizzy hair.

Rating: 4/5

GOOD – OR BAD – HAIR DAY?

GHD Duet Style Hot Air Styler, £379, John Lewis

My reservations about the GHD Duet Style Hot Air Styler were largely based on its design, as it is the largest and heaviestCredit: Stewart Williams

This straightener did not dry out the roots of my hairCredit: supplied

Dimensions: 396 x 120 x 100 mm.

Weight: 1.28kg.

Current: 410w, two heat settings.

Cord: 270cm.

Claims: 45 percent less energy consumption, no heat damage, immediate lint-free result, 2x more shine.

TARA SAYS: When I tried this before it launched last year, I couldn't figure out who it was designed for.

But as the reviews started rolling in, I quickly understood the appeal.

There are a large number of people with wavy hair who have had great success with this OG damage-free, wet-to-dry straightener.

My doubts are largely based on the design, as it is the largest of the three and also the heaviest, meaning my arm was already sore by the time I was halfway through my hair.

And the airflow doesn't stop automatically, so you'll have to turn it off every time you take a break if you don't want to risk melting the carpet.

Its bulky size and shape also made it hardest to use on the back of my head.

And it didn't dry out the roots of my hair as I couldn't get it to the top inch or so.

I also noticed that it got extremely hot despite maintaining an optimal temperature of 185 degrees.

Sometimes it even felt like my scalp was burning.

The results are somewhere between the Dyson and Remington, as is the time it took.

It left my hair straight and shiny, but lacked the bounce that the Dyson provides.

PRONUNCIATION: It's the only tool that uses hot air and metal plates, so I expected it to be the fastest of the three.

But the oversized design makes it difficult to use.

If I had shorter, wavy hair, I might find the effort more worthwhile.

Rating: 3/5

CHEAP BUT NOT CHEERFUL

Remington Wet 2 Straight Pro S7970 Hair Straightener, £49.99, Currys

The Remington Wet 2 Straight Pro S7970 hair straightener from Currys was disappointingCredit: Stewart Williams

The product made an alarming hissing sound and emitted a lot of steamCredit: supplied

Dimensions: ‎38.2 x 31 x 277.4 mm.

Weight: 0.427kg.

Current: 52W, ten heat settings.

Cord: 300 cm.

Claims: Cuts styling time in half, no heat damage.

TARA SAYS: It's easier to figure out than the Dyson, because it has the same size as a normal hair straightener and you use it in the same way.

There are two settings for wet and dry, with temperature increases of 10 degrees Celsius from 140 to 230 degrees.

It is important that you put it in wet mode by pressing and holding the “+” for two seconds and waiting for the screen to turn blue, otherwise you will damage your hair.

If I hadn't read the manual I wouldn't have known this – the other tools are self-explanatory.

In wet mode, as soon as I clamped it to my hair, it made an alarming hissing sound and released a lot of steam.

The no-damage claim is for four passes, but I had to go over the same section seven or more times before it felt dry.

Although it gets much hotter than the others – 90°C higher than the Dyson, which should make it easier to style for frizzy and curly hair – it's impossible to get all the way to the root because the heating plates don't penetrate to the hair roots. edge of the device, which would prevent the finish from being seamless.

For my fine, almost straight hair, I set it to 180 degrees Celsius and the result was straight.

But it caused my hair to become knotty, because without any airflow to separate and direct my stands, they became tangled, and my hair felt dry rather than shiny and smooth.

PRONUNCIATION: Despite the claim that it won't damage hair, the hissing and tangled results suggest otherwise.

It took many passes to dry my hair, longer than if I used two separate tools. I won't be using this again.

Rating: 1/5

Final verdict

WET-to-straight stylers are much less bulky than the Swiss army knife-like multistylers that have reigned supreme for years.

They're easy to use, while the 'no harm' claims make them a great option if you have teens or tweens who want to start styling their hair.

But I'm not convinced the results are as sleek as those from conventional hair straighteners.

And considering the price tag of both the GHD and Dyson, it's a lot to pay for something that only creates one style.

That said, I will definitely take the Airstrait with me on vacation as it is light and portable.

So if you have the money and use a hair straightener regularly, the multi-tasking wonders are a no-brainer.