#30dayglowup - Day 7
A one-step hairdryer that's easy to use, cheap and leaves hair soft and shiny? Let's take a look...
This 'one
step' hair device has been blowing up all over the internet, especially Tik
Tok, for the fact that's it's relatively cheap, easy to use and saves time. My old hair care routine mostly involved me air drying with the old classic
hairdryer/ round brush technique thrown in there whilst I was in a rush. However,
I never really got the knack for it and to be honest, I could never really be
bothered to spend a lot of time blow drying my hair and my results were never
that great. Because of this, a two in one blow dryer that’s easy to use and can
style you hair sounded very appealing to me.
Whilst I wasn’t
planning on splashing out ~ £400 for the Dyson airwrap, this Revlon hairdryer (Much
cheaper at around £40 depending on where you shop) did interest me, and so I took
the plunge a couple of months ago. Since then I have tried it around 4 or 5 times
and have really got a feel for the benefits and drawbacks of using this product
– especially after watching a load of Tik Toks and Youtube videos on it. I got
it with a student discount from Boots so for around £40, although I think the price
has been ramped up now.
If you’re
still contemplating whether to fall into the hype of this highly raved about
product, then this article is for you…
First impressions
The first
thing I thought when unboxing the hairdryer was that it was a lot bigger than I
thought it would be. I was picturing your typical round brush but it's very
wide on one side and takes up a lot of space in my drawer, which was surprising
as it figured this would make it difficult to properly style hair. I was also
surprised by how loud it was when I first turned it on, not much worse than a
normal hairdryer mind you but it does feel a bit concerning how much noise it
makes – especially with the reports of it randomly setting on fire. However, it
was easy to hold and not hard to figure out how to use so I was excited to give
it a go.
Does it work?
So to get
to the reason we're all here, does it work? Well to put it simply, yes it does.
This hairdryer cuts my drying time down significantly, especially because as I
said before, I have pretty thick hair. It is so easy to use compared to the
typical round brush/ hairdryer technique as it's just like brushing your hair
normally. It leaves my hair soft and smooth and it's easy to get a lot of
volume at the roots. It's also not as tiring on your hands, wrists and arms as
you only have one hair tool to use, which in turn means you have a lot of
control.
Now for
the cons. As I mentioned before my hair is very thick, which means I naturally
have a lot of volume to it especially because it dries with a slight wave. Lots
of my haircare products I use are for smoothing down my hair, otherwise it ends
up looking a bit like a triangle. For me, this hairdryer gives me too much
volume if I don't style it in some way afterwards. Additionally, whilst the
effect it gives is nice for the most part, it’s not some miracle tool to give
you that salon blow out at home. Similarly, to the normal round brush/
hairdryer technique, it does take practise and adapting your technique to suit
your hair types and how it looks. Another big con which I mentioned before is
the noise of this thing. It is very loud which increases as you turn up the settings.
This doesn’t bother me too much because I normally watch programs with
subtitles whilst drying my hair, but if you’re planning on having any sort of conversation,
I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed with this one.
Pros and Cons summary
Pros:
- Easy to use
- Gives you a lot of control over manoeuvring it
- Less tiring on wrists and arms than the usual blow drying technique
- Leaves hair soft and shiny
- Takes less time than regular blow drying as there’s less faffing around
Cons:
- Too much volume for me – makes my hair look puffy
- My hair needs some kind of styling afterwards
- Difficult to achieve the ‘salon blow out’
- Very loud
Useful features:
- Different heat/ intensity settings
- Attachment that swivels so it doesn’t get tangled
- Long power cable
How I use it to get the best results
As I said
before this product does leave my hair looking a bit like a puff ball, but I do
like the soft and shiny texture it gives. So how do I get one without the
other? I’ve managed to adapt my use of the Revlon blow dryer so that it works
for my hair type. Firstly, using on hair that’s damp as opposed to wet is much
more effective as giving a smooth appearance as you don’t have to go over the
same section as many times.
What I usually
do is plop my hair after a shower (essentially using a cotton t shirt as a hair
towel, there’s some great how to YouTube videos of this, again I stole it from
curly girls they know their hair better than I ever will) and do my skincare or
epilate or something straight after, and then let my hair down and use the blow
dryer (after heat protectant of course).
Also, in
terms of styling afterwards I do one of two things. The first (and less common)
thing is to straighten my hair using your bog-standard flat iron which yes,
eliminates the frizz but I also don’t really like causing my damage to my hair
after I’ve already used heat. My other, preferable option is to use a heatless
curl method on the ever-so-slightly damp hair left over from blow drying. This
works incredibly well and I only need to leave it in for a couple of hours to
see the effects, although my hair does have a natural wave to it.
I feel
like this point is a given with a lot of blow-drying tutorials but hey ho –
definitely section your hair off if you want each section done properly. I do 3
around the crown of my head where I blow dry downwards in a straightening
style, and then one section at the top to give a bit of extra volume at the
roots. Whilst this sounds like it contradicts my ‘blah blah too my volume my
hair looks puffy’ complaint, volume at the roots is something I’m fully down
for, it’s when it puffs outwards at the side that irks me. I’ve found that
sectioning my hair this way and brushing the sides downwards and the top
section upwards this works best to reduce my volume issue as much as possible.
When I do
these three things I am very happy with the results of the hair dryer, but when
I don’t not so much. So if you’ve got a similar hair texture to me (slightly
wavy and very thick), definitely give these techniques a go to make the most of
this product for your hair type. If you want more volume then this is probably perfect
for you.
In conclusion
To round
this up, yes, I do like the Revlon two in one styler and yes I would recommend
it to you. For the less expensive price range and effective results it gives it
does seem a little too good to be true (maybe the fact some people have
randomly reported it setting on fire contradicts that a bit), but it’s worked
well for me so far.
I hope
you enjoyed my first product review and found it helpful. I’ve found that this
product has had its own involvement in my glow up journey in terms of the
appearance of my hair and thereby my confidence. Whilst it isn’t the be-all-end-all
unlike some of my favourite products (mostly in the skincare category), I would
say it’s helped and all in all I’m pretty chuffed with it.
Let me
know if there’s any other products you want me to test out (Within a student
price range please) and if there’s any questions you have about this one. Be
sure to follow me on my social media accounts and subscribe via email down
below, and I hope you enjoyed! Be sure to tune in tomorrow for a post about manifestation and the law of attraction which, whilst I'm not 100% certain about, I do like picking and choosing the parts which work for me. So for a full run down of that, stay tuned...
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