Remember the Wet 2 Straight of the early 2000s? Sure, it kind of worked to straighten your hair, but you might as well have put your wet strands directly on a cast-iron pan, since it basically seared hair to medium-well and left it with tons of heat damage to boot. The thought of putting my hair through that again makes me want to break out in full-body hives, so you can imagine that I’m automatically skeptical when I hear about a tool that promises to take your hair from wet to straight.
When Dyson comes out with a new hair tool, however, I listen. The Airwrap alone has transformed how I style my hair—before I had one, I was abysmal at doing my own hair, and now, I can leave the house looking like I just had a blowout in 15 minutes flat. Same goes for the Supersonic Hair Dryer, which gets my hair dry quickly and doesn’t leave any flyaways. That’s why when Dyson released the Airstrait last week, I let my curiosity over-ride my skepticism.
The Airstrait works differently than any other straightener you’ve come across, as it doesn’t rely on hot plates to smooth hair. Instead, the tool relies on the powerful airflow that Dyson is known for to dry and straighten hair without any heat damage. In fact, the highest temperature you can set the Airstrait to is 285 degrees Fahrenheit, which is much lower than most hot tools.
“Having a strong understanding of how to manipulate and realize the potential of powerful airflow is fundamental to the performance of the Dyson Airstrait straightener,” James Dyson, Founder and Chief Engineer, shared in a press release. “This expertise, which we’ve gained over the last 25 years, is what has enabled us to deliver our first wet to dry straightener, with no hot plates, and no extreme heat damage. Delivering the ease-of-use that people love about straighteners but with high-velocity air blades, saves time, maintains hair strength and achieves an everyday natural straight style.”
The tool looks like your average straightener, but it has a few pretty cool functions. You can clamp it dry and use it as a hair dryer to rough-dry hair and dry the scalp area. From there, you can choose the “Wet,” “Dry,” or “Cool” settings to style your hair. On “Wet” mode, you can choose between 175°F, 230°F, and 285°F (the thicker and curlier the hair, the higher you’d likely want to go). On “Dry,” you can choose 250°F or 285°F or a “boost”. You can also control airflow, and the machine also automatically turns off once you’ve set it down.
I decided to test the Airstrait on myself to see just how easy it is to use. I have extremely thick, wavy hair that typically takes 20 to 30 minutes to dry—and if I add straightening into the mix, I’m looking at at least an hour in front of the mirror.
I started with towel-dried hair, and after the first strand I was immediately impressed. I did two passes, but I could have gotten away with one and still had impeccably straight strands—and I took a large section. I did my whole head in 15 minutes—I timed it. FYI, I’ve also used it on already dry hair, and it took me 9 minutes to get my whole head pin-straight. The great thing about this tool is that unlike a traditional flat iron, it doesn’t flatten hair—the airflow still allows you to maintain volume, so your hair still has body even though it’s straight.
This was one of my first questions after learning about the tool. As a white woman with wavy hair, it’s no surprise to me that a tool like this would work well on my hair type. I attended a Dyson demo where they showed us the tool on 2C curls, 3B curls, and 4C curls. The tool took each texture straight in the same amount of time. If you have curlier hair that you’d like to straighten with less time and heat damage, this might just be the tool you’ve been waiting for.
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