Dyson Corrale vs ghd Platinum+: which pair of straighteners are best suited to your hair?

Heat-up time: 25 seconds

Features: Up to 30 minutes cordless time, regulates plate temperature, smart OLED screen, flexing manganese copper alloy plates

Review: This smart technology uses plates that flex around the hair to reduce damage and frizz. With an integrated heat control sensor, there are no hair-singeing hot spots either. It takes slightly longer than ghd to get a pin-straight style, but it delivers a smooth, blow-dry-like finish

Buy it if: You have more to spend and want to prioritise the health of your hair without compromising results

Heat-up time: 20 seconds

Features: Wishbone hinge, ultra-gloss plates, 185°C temperature, universal voltage, automatic shut-off

Review: The Platinum+ offers speedy results that boast added smoothness and shine. Easy to use and narrow enough to get close to the roots and tame flyaways, you can expect poker straight and glossy locks

Buy it if: You want straighteners that pack a punch without breaking the bank

One of the reasons the Dyson Corrale felt so very exciting when it first launched is that it looks quite different to the average styler. Firstly, it has cordless functionality, which is a big plus in terms of where you can style. It's especially handy if you like to wave or curl your hair with straighteners, as well as for touching up your hairstyle on the go. That said, it’s also quite a chunky and weighty tool. Where most straighteners have got sleeker and more streamlined over the years, the Corrale is very much the opposite. At 561g when cordless (i.e. more than half a kilogram), it’s nearly twice as heavy as the ghd Platinum+ Styler. It looks good, though, and the magpies among us will like the super-shiny finish of the metallic accents on the sides and plates. Instead of a complete opening from the tips of the plates to the hinge, the gap is only between the plates, which allows for a screen and control pad for monitoring its battery level and adjusting its temperature settings.

The ghd Platinum+, on the other hand, looks and feels exactly as you’d expect a straightener to. It's narrow and sleek, with a gap in the middle that spans the length of the tool, while the wire sits at the end. We didn't think we’d ever be impressed by a cord, but this one is pretty cool with a 360º swivel that allows you to twist and turn the straighteners without tugging or getting tangled up in the wire. There wishbone-shaped hinge also stands out from the rest of the design and gave us more control over your style. Instead of a choice of temperatures, there’s just one button to turn the styler on and heat it to 185ºC – the temperature that ghd says inflicts less damage without compromising on results. At 302g, the Platinum+ is also nice and lightweight and the plates are narrow enough to style long hairstyles and short hairstyles alike.

As for fancy features, the Dyson Corrale leaves even the best straighteners for thick hair in the shade. It can be used plugged in, or 70 minutes of charge will yield 30 minutes of cordless styling. That won't be enough time for everyone to style their full head of hair straight, but it's enough time for a good touch-up or to smooth out areas of frizz. It’s worth noting that the Corrale is powered by a lithium battery, which have had some negative press lately (especially when used on planes), but fortunately this tool has a flight-safe mode.

The plates on the Corrale are made with flexible copper that bends and flexes around the hair to increase tension and reduce damage and frizz. This makes it one of the best straighteners for curly hair on the market. This device has an integrated heat control sensor, too, which regulates the plate temperature 100 times per second. This ensures the heat distribution remains even, so there are no hair-singeing hot spots, and that it never goes above the set temperature.

As one of the brand’s most premium stylers, now second only to the ghd Chronos, the Platinum+ boasts top-tier tech. The coated plates have sensors that monitor their temperature 250 times per second to maintain the aforementioned optimum temperature of 185ºC.

The plates also feature ultra-zone predictive technology, which recognises both the thickness of a section of hair and the speed at which you are styling to adapt the heat accordingly. This means personalised results without any additional effort on your part. The plates are floating, too, which is why you might notice a bit of bounce when you compress them. This stops them from creating too much tension or friction in the hair, no matter how hard you clamp them down. It’s a big plus for anyone who tends to be too heavy-handed with their straighteners.

The Dyson Corrale heats up quickly after turning it on – just ensure it’s not in flight mode, as I lost 10 minutes panicking that I’d already broken the tool on the first use. If this happens to you, simply flip the little tab on the side of the device. (You’re welcome.)

As the battery on the Corrale only lasts for up to 30 minutes, you need to start straightening as soon as it's heated up to avoid being left with one un-styled side – especially if you have a lot of hair – if you're using it wire-free. I started on the lowest temperature setting, but found it was taking around four slow passes per section to persuade my hair into a straighter, smoother finish. With the temperature turned up to the max (210°C), this was soon reduced to a couple of passes. The transition between temperatures is nice and speedy and even on the tool’s hottest setting, hair isn't left feeling super hot to the touch. All in all, I’d say it took ever so slightly longer to straighten my hair with the Dyson Corrale compared to the ghd.

There is a slightly distracting downside to the tool; our contributing beauty editor Lucy Abbersteen agrees that the corraling mechanism makes an offputting clicking sound and yields a slight "snagging" sensation that suggests your hair might be being shredded as it passes through the plates. The good news is that, of course, it isn’t doing either of those things and this is simply the flexing plates clicking as they adjust into place around the hair.

The performance of the ghd Platinum+ is hard to fault. It’s easy to use straight from the box and starts to heat up with a single touch of one button. Just wait for the dinging sound and you’re good to go. It's design is narrow enough to get the tool close to the roots, tame fuzzy flyaways along the parting and wispy baby hairs at the hairline – but it's also effective enough to straighten quite a large chunk of hair at once. One (relatively speedy) pass through each section left my hair smooth, shiny and very straight, which is good if you’re in a rush. However, the slower you go, the better the finish.

Of course, compared to the Dyson Corrale, the fact that the ghd Platinum+ only has one setting means it comes up a little short. Conversely, hair feels hotter after using the Platinum+ (which is set at 185°C) compared to Dyson’s top temperatures of 210°C. I found the intensity of the heat is great for wrestling fluffy, just-washed hair into shape, but not so necessary for between-wash touch-ups; it would be good to have the option to turn it down.

The results of the Dyson Corrale aren't dissimilar to a smooth blow dry. It definitely helps to iron out waves or curls, but leaves more volume in the hair than the ghd Platinum+ and the finish isn’t as shiny. That these irons are a bit too chunky to get very close to the roots has an impact, too. For this reason, the Corrale would suit someone who usually finds straighteners can make their hair look too flat and wants to retain some "oomph". We found the results aren’t super long-lasting and hair tends to spring back a little between washes.

If you have frizz-prone hair that has at least some movement naturally, then the ghd Platinum+ will give you the kind of results you’ve probably always hoped for from straighteners. It leaves hair super sleek, super shiny, and of course, super straight. What impressed me most is that my hair stayed this way until my next wash day. It didn’t veer into fluffy territory even on humid or rainy days, and if it did start to frizz, a quick brush through was enough to restore that glossiness.