All I want is silky straight hair without having to spend the day at the hair salon
Blowout brushes are supposed to be a more foolproof method for achieving salon-ready results at home.
By Jodhaira Rodriguez
I grew up going to the hair salon nearly every Saturday afternoon with my mom. I’d be there for most of the day, first having my curly, frizzy hair washed, conditioned, and detangled, then sitting under a dryer with rollers in my head for an hour.
After the rollers, my hair stylist blow-dried my hair for another 30 minutes, before a final quick swipe of a flat iron on my already extremely straight hair. It’s a tradition I opted out of in my teens. As an adult, I wear my hair curly most often and only go back once a year or so when it’s time for a haircut.
But I do enjoy straightening my waist-length hair myself for an occasional length check.
My current routine takes nearly an hour and a half. I blow-dry with the Revlon One-Step Volumizer Hair Dryer then flat iron—that’s a lot of heat and tiresome work.
I wanted to find out if I could reduce the time and effort needed to achieve straight hair, so I, along with three of my CR colleagues, put the Revlon to the test against the popular Amika Blowout Babe Thermal Ionic Brush to find out which one could work best across all our different hair textures.
Meet the Evaluators
Three of the four CR staffers who evaluated the Amika and Revlon blow dryer brushes.
Photo: Jodhaira Rodriguez, Mary Beth Quirk/Consumer Reports, Tasha Massey
Jodhaira Rodriguez
I’m a writer and product tester at Consumer Reports with waist-length, box-dyed curly hair. My curls are 3B-2C, dry, and frizzy. On most days I wear my hair in a wash-and-go style, but on those occasions when I straighten my hair, I use a Revlon One-Step Volumizer Hair Dryer and then flat iron my hair at home.
Tasha Massey
Tasha Massey is a senior administrative assistant at CR. She has shoulder-length 4B/C hair that she does not chemically straighten. She usually blow-dries her hair every two weeks using a traditional blow-dryer and detangling brush and finishes it off with a pass of a flat iron. In between blow-outs, she touches up her hair with a flat iron every few days.
Mary Beth Quirk
Mary Beth Quirk, managing editor of CR’s shopping program, has medium-long red hair that has never been color-treated. When she allows her hair to air-dry, she describes it as “mostly straight with a few waves.” Her individual hair strands are fine, but she has a lot of hair. She usually styles her hair one to three times per week using a Dyson Supersonic hair dryer, paddle brush, and round brush.
Rashmi Jain
Rashmi, a project manager at CR, has waist-length, color-treated frizzy hair. She usually styles her hair using a hair dryer and roller brush.
Revlon One-Step Volumizer Hair Dryer and Styler
Jodhaira Rodriguez
Jodhaira’s hair before and after styling with the Revlon blowout brush.
Photo: Jodhaira Rodriguez/Consumer Reports
The setup: I washed, conditioned, and detangled my hair, then liberally applied a heat protectant cream before roughly drying it with my traditional blow-dryer. Usually, I don’t blow-dry before using the Revlon but since the Amika blow-dryer brush is supposed to be used on dry hair, I wanted to compare my results with my hair prepped the same way.
How it performed: I’ve used this brush for years so I knew what to expect. As usual, my hair looked really good after I finished styling it. I still opted to flat iron my blow-dried hair afterward to give myself a silkier look, but even without the flat iron, I’d wear my hair out to an event freshly blow-dried. The next day, I was able to wear my hair out again and, with a quick root touch-up, for two days more after that. Without predrying my hair, getting my hair done with the Revlon can take anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half. Having predried my hair, I was done styling my hair in 30 minutes.
One thing that I’ve always struggled with when styling with this brush is not being able to straighten my roots, especially the baby hairs around my forehead. The brush is a bit too bulky to grip these shorter bits.
This brush has an unfortunate set of features that give me flashbacks to my long days in the hairstylist’s chair: it gets too hot at the highest heat setting and it’s noisy. Unlike the Amika brush, this one is loud. I can hear music playing from my phone while I do my hair, but after a few minutes, the constant whirring gets annoying. I use the highest heat setting to go over all my hair one final time before flat ironing and every time I am careful about not allowing the brush to touch my ears, scalp, or forehead. The top of the blow-dryer brush and the air that blows out of it are very hot.
Ease of use: As another tester mentions below, it takes a little practice to get good results. You have to keep tension on the hair and work in sections smaller than you would originally think to separate your hair. On the days that I’m not patient enough to section my hair correctly, I’ve ended up with a head of frizzy hair that I have not been happy to wear down. Once you get the right tension and movement of the wrist, though, this brush is easy to use. I like that you have to twist the handle to change the heat settings because I can’t accidentally switch the device off while I’m using it.
Cleaning: Each time I’ve used it, I’ve noticed a lot of hair is left wrapped around the brush. This has always been my main concern when using it because I fear that I’m losing more hair than I should. If I don’t detangle my hair well, catching a knot in the brush’s bristles is a painful ordeal that results in even more hair breakage. I use the end of a rat-tail comb to remove the wrapped hair from the brush, but often I have trouble getting all of it out.
Mary Beth Quirk
Mary Beth’s hair before and after styling with the Revlon blowout brush.
Photo: Mary Beth Quirk/Consumer Reports
How it performed: Mary Beth was able to dry and style her hair in 10 minutes with the Revlon brush. She was happy with the results and said that if she had owned this brush first, she may have never purchased her Dyson hair dryer. “It’s less comfortable to use and louder, but in the end, it accomplishes the same thing, if not a better-looking result, without having to use an additional tool (a round brush).”
After three minutes on high heat, she had to pull her hand away from the top of the brush because she felt the brush was too hot to hold from that end. “I was holding onto the non-handle end and definitely had to pull my hand pack quickly. I ended up turning down the heat at that point.” Lastly, the Revlon brush is a little bit louder than her usual blow-dryer. “On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being offensive and 1 being whisper quiet, it’s a 3.5.”
Ease of use: She found it easy to switch between heat settings and didn’t notice any excessive hair breakage or damage after styling. She did find the brush was bulky, and after a few minutes of styling, her hand grew tired, just like it did when she used her hair dryer and round brush.
Cleaning: Mary Beth had no trouble removing the strands of hair that were left behind on the brush.
Tasha Massey
How it performed: Tasha described her blowout with this brush as “surprisingly excellent.” “The bristles were strong enough that I blow-dried straight down without any snags or hesitation.” Styling her hair with the Revlon brush took just 25 minutes, and she didn’t notice any more hair breakage or loss than with her usual routine. She said she would not only recommend this blow-dryer brush but also plans to use it to blow-dry her hair regularly going forward.
Rashmi Jain
How it performed: Before this evaluation, Rashmi had never used a blow-drying brush. She thought there was a learning curve to working with both brushes.
Ease of use: She found the Revlon comfortable to use, maintained a good temperature, and easy to change the settings. Because she noticed a lot of hair breakage when using this brush, she said she would not recommend it to a friend.
Cleaning: She also said that the hairs that became tangled in the brush were not easy to remove.
Amika Blowout Babe Thermal Ionic Brush
Jodhaira Rodriguez
Jodhaira’s hair before and after styling with the Amika blowout brush.
Photo: Jodhaira Rodriguez/Consumer Reports
How it performed: To say I was extremely disappointed with the blowout I gave myself with this brush would be an understatement. After struggling to get this brush through my hair for 30 minutes, my blowout looked pretty bad. My ends began to curl up after less than an hour, and when I touched my scalp, I could feel the hair at the top of my head that was beginning to return to its original curly form, too. The next day, I woke up, and brushed my hair into a high ponytail. I got no second-day wear out of this blowout (and no compliments from friends the night before).
Ease of use: The blow-drying process was difficult for me. The Amika brush painfully caught on my freshly detangled hair, and the hard bristles felt rough on my scalp when I attempted to work the brush through my roots. I also had to pass the brush over the same section of hair multiple times to achieve a blowout effect. Most confusing of all, there is no way to adjust this brush’s temperature. According to information on the product site, the brush works at a temperature of 356° F. The only adjustment you can make is to the “negative ion generator,” which is supposed to add shine or volume/body to your hair depending on what mode you have the brush set to. I tried both and found that neither gave me the blowout I was looking for.
Cleaning: Finally, I worry that these round hot brushes cause me to lose more hair than I should during the blow-drying process. When I was done using the Amika Blowout Babe Thermal Ionic Brush, there was a lot more hair wrapped around the brush than I’m used to pulling off the Revlon brush. I struggled a bit with removing the hairs wrapped around the brush because they continued to snag on the hard bristles as I pulled the strands.
Mary Beth Quirk
Mary Beth’s hair before and after styling with the Amika blowout brush.
Photo: Mary Beth Quirk/Consumer Reports
How it performed: Bounce and volume is what Mary Beth says the Amika brush gave her hair. She spent 20 minutes blow-drying her hair before she was happy with her results. She bought this brush for herself after trying it in our evaluations. “For me, the only dings here are the price and the tiny hassle of having the settings button slide too easily. I purchased this brush for myself after using it twice during the trial but only because it was $30 off for Cyber Monday. I wouldn’t spend that much on myself otherwise. That said, I think I might even give away my curling wand now.”
Ease of use: She appreciated how light and slender it is, though she still grew tired of holding it after a few minutes like she does when she uses a traditional blow-dryer. After watching video tutorials of others using the brush, she says she had even better results than the first time. She didn’t notice any more hair breakage than usual, and while she found it easy to switch the device on and off, the placement of the button caused her to accidentally shut the blow-dryer brush off in the middle of a styling session.
Tasha Massey
How it performed: Tasha gave up on blow-drying her hair with this brush two minutes into her styling session. The brush snagged so much that she was afraid if she continued to use it, the bristles would break off.
Ease of use: She thought the brush was comfortable to hold and easy to use, but would not recommend this to a friend.
Rashmi Jain
How it performed: Like Mary Beth, she preferred this brush over the Revlon blow-dryer brush. Styling her hair took just 20 to 30 minutes. In contrast to her experience with the Revlon brush, she noticed no excessive breakage after she was done styling her hair.
Ease of use: Rashmi found the process easier than using a traditional blow dryer and described the Amika brush as comfortable to use.
The Bottom Line
Similar to our results with hair straightening brushes, the verdict was split for these blow-dryer brushes.
Mary Beth and Rashmi enjoyed using the Amika Blowout Babe Thermal Ionic Brush, while Tasha and I hated it. It all comes down to hair texture. We couldn’t get the Amika brush to work on curly/kinky hair.
The Revlon One-Step Volumizer Hair Dryer and Styler worked well across all of our hair but didn’t receive a unanimous vote as the favorite either. Overall, I’d say skip the Amika brush if you have curly or kinky hair because it snags on curls and doesn’t offer any temperature control. The Revlon is much better suited for the task.
Can Hair Dryer Brushes Damage Your Hair?
Hair transplant surgeon Ross Kopelman, MD, says the damage these brushes can cause to your hair is due to improper use and excessively high temperatures. “Heated hair tools themselves do not directly cause hair loss, but repeated misuse can contribute to mechanical and heat-related damage that weakens hair over time. This damage can make hair prone to breakage, giving the appearance of thinning. Additionally, if the scalp is exposed to extreme heat, it may cause inflammation or irritation, potentially affecting hair follicles and leading to temporary shedding,” he said.
Chiara Scudieri, hairstylist and founder of I.C.O.N. Products, says blow-drying brushes aren’t specifically more damaging to hair than any other heated hairstyling tool. However, because people have them at home, it could mean they are overusing the brushes. “While these tools combine the functionality of a dryer and a brush, they often concentrate heat closer to the hair shaft, which can lead to dryness or breakage over time, especially for finer or more delicate hair.”
Both Kopelman and Scudieri agreed that they wouldn’t tell clients not to use these tools but that they shouldn’t use them too often. Scudieri recommends using them paired with a “broader hair care regimen that prioritizes hydration and protection.”
How to Avoid Damage When Using a Hair Dryer Brush
In addition to limiting how often you’re using a hair dryer brush on your hair, there are some other tips the experts recommended to prevent hair damage.
• Always apply a heat protectant to your hair before using any heated tool.
• Start with the lowest heat setting that works for your hair type.
• Avoid brushing the same section of hair multiple times.
• Only use the tools on clean, dry, and detangled hair.
How We Evaluated Blow-Dryer Brushes
Our at-home testing involved using the two brushes and noting how easy they were to use, how well they styled our hair, how hot they became during use, and how long it took to style our hair with each brush.
In our lab, I also recorded the temperature of each brush’s handle and heating surface after 10 minutes of use at the highest temperature.
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