These hot brushes are great alternatives to the Dyson Airwrap without the luxury price tag

For those who can't stretch to the price of the real deal, Dyson Airwrap dupes can achieve similar results and create smooth, salon-worthy hair in one multi-functional tool – without breaking the bank. 

Don't get us wrong, we love the Dyson Airwrap; our beauty contributor gave the super styler 4.5 stars in her honest Dyson Airwrap review. But, though its advanced technology plays a huge part in this, the styler is incredibly expensive at nearly £480 (and the new Dyson Airstrait isn't much more affordable either).

The revolutionary styler changed the way consumers can style their hair. Using air instead of direct heat, the clever Coanda effect is what sets this hair tool apart from others. But with such game-changing technology comes a hefty price tag. "As we know, the Dyson Airwrap has become one of the most sought-after hair tools of our generation," says pro hairdresser and JOICO ambassador Gill Berry. "Having revolutionised the world of hair drying with the dryer, the Airwrap has made a significant impact on the world of hair styling and has become essential within homes across the UK. However with a high price point, many often look for alternatives."

Those alternatives come from brands like Revlon, Remington, and Babyliss, often priced below the £100 mark. Price is a key consideration, but your hair type, length and thickness matter, too – if you have very straight hair that doesn't curl easily, you'll require oomph to persuade it into place, while naturally curly hair will likely need a tool that creates tension to achieve a sleek finish. Fine and fast-drying hair won't need as high heat settings or airflow as those with thicker hair. Consider how long your hair is, too, as some attachments may work well on Rapunzel-esque lengths, but won't be quite so effective on shoulder-skimming bobs. (If you want to see a head-to-head comparison of one of the market's leading models, take a look at our Shark Flexstyle vs Dyson Airwrap article.)

Here I've reviewed what I deem the best Dyson Airwrap dupes, sharing with you the tools that came as close to the real thing as possible during the testing process. I tested each tool on freshly washed hair (if possible, as not all of them work on wet hair) as well as dry hair to give you a reliable review of how they worked in different scenarios. My hair is long, wavy and relatively thick, so I also tested them on my daughter's shorter fine, curly hair as a comparison. If you're not ready to part with nearly £500 on a hair tool, read on for everything I've learnt about the more affordable alternatives.

Stephanie Maylor

Stephanie Maylor is an established Beauty Editor with more than 15 years of experience in the industry. She has written and edited for a wide range of titles, including Grazia, OK! and woman&home. 

Gill Berry

Gill Berry is a highly experienced creative hairdresser as well as an ambassador and educator for haircare brand JOICO. 

The best Dyson Airwrap dupes, reviewed by our beauty editor

The trade-off for affordability is that even the best Dyson Airwrap rivals can’t replicate the Dyson's Coanda effect. Instead, these hot brush tools use tension, hot and cold air and, in some cases, rotating barrels to create a range of styles and add impressive volume.

I was blown away by how good this tool is and I have to say, I am quite taken with the Barbiecore colourway. The first thing I noticed (besides the pink) was how light it is; I didn’t get the usual armache when blow-drying with this. 

Unlike the Airwrap (but similar to other rivals like the BaByliss Air Style), hair should be mostly dry before styling with this, but the drying attachment took care of that, ensuring my hair was ready to be smoothed out in five minutes. The 60mm oval barrel smoothed my hair nicely; it is on the large side but still managed to curl my hair under at the ends. I was slightly worried that the bristle tufts, despite being flexible, would get tangled in my hair, but it didn’t knot up at all – neither did my daughter’s hair, which is a little finer. 

Of all the tools on this list, I achieved the best ringlets with the Mermade’s 32mm curling head – they were so bouncy and didn’t drop as quickly. Sure, the Mermade isn’t going to swirl the hair around the barrel like the Dyson does for you, but the cool tip is a good enough size that you can avoid burning your fingertips as you twirl sections around the barrel. This is a great bouncy blow-dry in a box, with a silky-smooth result that means you don’t feel the need to use your best hair straighteners afterwards. 

Up until now, I’d never mastered the bouncy at-home blow-dry, but the Hot Tools Volumiser has changed this. Completely foolproof, the titanium plate surface and soft bristles glide through the hair with ease. The styler also comes with two oval attachments, a classic size and a smaller version, with three heat settings at the base.

Truthfully, there’s not a massive difference between the 71mm and 61mm heads. I like to create movement when blow-drying my hair – but even the smaller attachments struggled to create bends in my long hair. It did, however, create a smooth, frizz-free finish very quickly. My hair went from damp to dry and polished in about 10 minutes (usually, it takes me that long to blast-dry with a hair dryer). Also impressive was its ability to create a style with staying power.

Other features include the 3m salon-length cable that swivels so it doesn’t tangle. The rubbery cool tip is generous too, so you can get good tension on the hair without catching your fingers on the hot vents. Understandably, like the Beauty Works Hot Brush and Revlon One-Step Volumiser, this isn’t a complete like-for-like of the Dyson Airwrap; its attachments are designed for volume, rather than curls. But if speed-drying is your goal, this could be the Dyson Airwrap alternative for you – especially if you have long, thick and frizzy hair. 

It may not come with the high-tech technology or wardrobe of attachments the Dyson Airwrap does, but TikTokers are obsessed with this 2-in-1 dryer and brush for its body-boosting results. This is Revlon’s second incarnation with a detachable head that's ideal for travel like their travel hairdryer, and a 30% smaller barrel than the original Volumiser. So, what does that mean for your hair? For one thing, you can get the oval barrel even closer to your roots for extra lift. It also makes it easier to create bend and movement in the hair, particularly for shorter styles or when styling layered hair. 

This 2.0 version also has a new ceramic titanium tourmaline coating, which yields even heat distribution and, therefore, less damage to hair. It is quite heavy and chunky, so after styling my whole head of hair it’s fair to say my arm needed a rest. However, it’s one of the more affordable options on our list and about eight times cheaper than the Dyson Airwrap, so a great option for those on smaller budgets. The results were brilliant and it delivered the most volume and bounce of any tool we tried. 

The downside, in my hair type, was that it didn’t smooth out all of my frizz, so I did need a quick pass-over with my straighteners to iron out those annoying flyaways at the root. There’s no pomp to this styling tool, which is kind of refreshing; it’s so quick and easy to use, and if you haven’t got the room to store several attachments, its simplicity is bliss.

 See our full Revlon Hair Dryer Brush review for an in-depth look at this tool

With its rotating barrel, the Remington Hot Air Styler is able to mimic the technique used by expert stylists to simultaneously curl and smooth hair dry. It also rotates in both directions, which is very helpful when you want to curl hair away from the face on both sides. On top of the four attachments, it also comes with a pretty sturdy storage case for packing up your styler, so it certainly feels like you’re getting a lot of bang for your buck here.  

While it’s not a heavy tool, the handle and attachments feel long – not too dissimilar to the Dyson Airwrap, which is similarly bulky. It offers a good range of attachments and styling versatility, like the Airwrap, and it was definitely quieter than the Hot Tools Volumiser and Babyliss Air Style 1000. The curling barrel has a clip, just as you’d find on a traditional curling tong, but I found this to be a bit redundant and that it made the whole process more laborious. 

While it did a good job of creating looser curly hairstyles, they were quick to drop. (Again, this is more than likely down to my hair type – even the best curling irons can’t create lasting ringlets on me.) It was with the 40mm soft bristle brush that this tool really excelled. It kept hair taut without yanking and smoothed out frizz. It’s a slightly smaller barrel than the BaByliss Air Style 1000, which makes it a great option for mid-length hair, or those with long hairstyles looking to create more of a bend in their blow-out.

If you’ve used the Shark Hair Dryer, you’d probably be just as excited as we were to try the FlexStyle multi-styler. After all, it's the only tool on our list to use the Coanda, AKA the same hair-wrapping airflow technology as Dyson. It also has the largest number of attachments of any rival we’ve tried – five, to be precise. So, it will come as no surprise that this is the most expensive Dyson Airwrap alternative in our selection.

Woman&home's Beauty Channel Editor, Fiona McKim, has tested the Shark FlexStyle, and has some thoughts. "I found that using the Shark, I could achieve pretty much everything I can do with my Airwrap," she says. "From a bouncy blow dry with the oval brush to beachy waves with the auto-wrap curlers, it's all here. There is a bit of a knack to it, but if you know how to use the Dyson Airwrap, you'll have this down in seconds. I found styles were just as easy to create and lasted a similar amount of time. 

"The Shark is heavier," she continues. "Not in a way that'll annoy you, just something I observed when I held them both at the same time. And while the Shark is an attractive device, it lacks that phwoar effect you get pulling a gleaming Aiwrap from its leather storage case. It's also a little bit noisier and, if I was being pernickety, I'd say that the cold shot takes longer to get cold. As I said, I'm being picky, because these are the sorts of upgrades spending an extra £200 will get you. Overall, in terms of Dyson Airwrap dupes, you probably won't get closer to the real thing than this."

See our full Shark FlexStyle review for more on this multi-styler

Fiona McKim

Fiona McKim has been part of the woman&home beauty team for more than a decade. During that time she has interviewed countless experts, reported backstage at Fashion Week and judged the woman&home Beauty Awards. 

Unlike the Dyson Airwrap, the ghd Rise heats up like a traditional curling tong rather than using the hot and cold air of a blow-dry brush. This means it can only be used on dry hair, so you’ll also need a hair dryer to style your hair here, too. You can use this tool in several ways, all of which require practice. Adding root lift was probably the easiest to get right. Wrap a small section of hair around the barrel, close to the roots, hold for five seconds and rise up as you release. 

For body and bounce, you treat the Rise as you would the best heated rollers, wrapping it up from the ends to the roots and holding it there for five seconds. This technique didn’t seem to do much for my hair, which I put down to its sheer length and thickness. Curls were the trickiest to master as you have to glide the barrel down the hair, then roll it up towards the root, hold it and unwind. Luckily, ghd has pre-empted this with some great tutorials online. 

As with all ghd products, the Rise beeps once it’s heated up and is ready to use, which takes 15 seconds. There are no settings here – the optimum styling temperature is 185ºC, which is consistently maintained across the barrel while styling. The bristles are shallow, which allows you to get the tool right into the root without hair getting tangled. I’ve seen some amazing "after" pictures using the Rise on long hair so, while that didn’t happen for me, I think it would be a great fit for short hairstyles or medium hairstyles looking for a tool that'll add "oomph" quickly. 

If you’re after a styler that looks very similar to the Dyson Airwrap but costs a fraction of the price, turn your attention to the 3 in 1 Hair Styling Brush from Evie. In the same grey and pink colour scheme as the original Airwrap, this tool certainly looks the part. However, it does differ from the OG Airwrap. First, you only get three attachments (as opposed to Dyson’s five) – all of which are brushes. There are no curling barrels included with this tool.  

The attachments include a 12cm round brush for curling, a 14cm brush head for straightening and a 15cm brush for blow drying. All of the brushes are easy to attach to the base (simply push and twist), but please note that they do get extremely hot. We’d recommend letting the brush head cool down before you remove it from the main tool. Like the Dyson, there are three heat settings and two speed settings to cater to different hair types. We were seriously impressed with the high-speed setting when drying hair – doing so took a matter of minutes.

As for the styling brushes, we found that both can smooth hair with ease. The results (when using the straightening brush) are natural-looking as opposed to being poker straight. We found the curling brush a little tricky to manoeuvre and the results weren’t as impressive as other rivals we tested; expect more of a wavy hairstyle than a big voluminous blow dry. 

With four attachments, not only is this one of the closest matches to the Dyson, but it’s a great value option too. The downside? It’s a lot louder than the Airwrap – but then again, not many can rival Dyson’s quiet motor. It doesn’t feature the Coanda effect either. Instead, the Babyliss Airstyle acts like a traditional blow-drying tool, meaning you have to wrap the hair around the barrel yourself. This can be tricky, especially when you want to direct the curl in different directions away from the face. 

BaByliss advises that hair is 80% dry before styling. It’s more time-consuming than an all-in-one like the Revlon One-Step Volumiser, which styles hair from wet, but it does come with a drying nozzle, so you have everything you need to take hair from sopping to smooth. The attachments also click in and out of the base with ease. The paddle brush smoothing nozzle didn’t do as much as I’d hoped to take down the frizzy hair at my roots, but it did get my hair in a better position to use the conical curling tong. The attachments do get hot during styling, so the heat-proof glove proved very useful in switching heads without scalding. 

Overall, I thought this tool was excellent value for money. It’s lightweight and simple enough to use. It’s a tool that pro hairdresser and BaByliss ambassador Syd Hayes often recommends. “If you blow-dry often, this styler makes it so much easier as you don’t have to hold a dryer and a brush,” he says. “It does the hard work for you and gives the perfect result."

Syd Hayes

Syd Hayes is a renowned hair stylist and the owner of the Q Cut salon in Kew Gardens, London. He is also an ambassador for BaByliss and has worked on countless photo shoots and fashion week shows during his career. 

Beauty Works' Speed Styler is arguably one of the best hair straightener brushes around – delivering the same smooth results that you’d expect from the Airwap’s Firm Smoothing Brush Head. Unlike the Airwrap, however, there are no extra attachments and you can only use this tool on dry hair.  

Heavier than most, I found this tool to be weightier than my ghd straighteners. But it was the only one on our list to have a digital temperature display, which was a nice touch, and you can change the temperature to suit your hair type. It takes a while to heat up (two minutes to reach 180ºC), so it’s not the best tool to use when you’re in a rush. Despite its large paddle brush design, I found it best to style a small section at a time with this tool. It straightened and smoothed my hair well and made it look healthier. The effect was more natural than the poker-straight result I’d get from my straighteners. 

The brush has a curved design and ionic-coated bristles that help to detangle strands as you style. Despite this, I found it struggled to get through my thick, coarse hair at times, so I think it’s definitely better suited to finer hair – of the five-star reviews I read, many described how well it worked on taming fine, flyaway hair. 

How to choose the best Dyson Airwrap dupe for you

The hair tools above come as close to replicating the results of a Dyson Airwrap – and a hair stylist’s professional blow-drying technique – as possible. Any of them will help you create a salon-worthy finish at home, but they are all slightly different. To help you find the right tool for you, consider the following factors.

• Number of attachments: If you want a versatile tool that can create sleek, smooth styles as well as bouncy curls, look at the number of attachments included. While the Dyson Airwrap comes with six – with more available to purchase separately – some rivals still come with four or even five to give you multiple styling options.
• Number of settings: A choice of heat (and airflow, if applicable) settings will allow you to tailor your tool to your specific hair type. For instance, if hair is fine – go low with temperature. 
• Additional features: Like the Dyson, some of these styling tools even dry hair as well as style, meaning you don’t need to splurge on one of the best hair dryer as well, saving you even more money.
• Hair type: Your hair type and thickness will help to determine the right tool for you. Consider factors like how long your hair normally takes to dry and how well it can hold a curl when choosing your styler. 
• Price point: An obvious one, but it is important to consider how much you can and want to spend before you start shopping. This will help you to whittle down your options. 

How we tested these Dyson Airwrap dupes

To come up with a definitive list of the best Dyson Airwrap dupes for this review, I tested many tools over several weeks, washing and styling my hair with all of the various attachments that came in each kit. I also tested a few of them on my daughter to see how they performed on her finer, curly hair versus my coarse, wavy hair. 

During the testing process, I assessed how the tools felt in the hand, the number of heat and speed settings, how easy it was to switch attachments and technical specifications such as weight and warranty. I also evaluated each tool’s ability to smooth, volumise and curl my hair, and of course, affordability was an important consideration. 

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