Dyson AirWrap Review

Dyson is dominating the hair care field with its engineering, and the AirWrap made a huge splash when it was released way back in 2018. Is it still a splurge-worthy hair tool today?

I recently bought the Airwrap for myself because I have been dying to find out…and what I found is this device has its quirks and limitations… but with a few tips, you can get it to work for you. In this review I’ll look at what you get with the Airwrap MultiStyler, what each of the tools does and how well it works or doesn’t, what you need to know about using each one, and if overall this very expensive hair gadget is worth the price.

Dyson AirWrap: What you get

The AirWrap is a beautiful package. The version I chose for myself is the Dyson Airwrap Complete Long, made for longer hair. (The Airwrap Complete is for hair shorter than chest length).

Inside the box you get a beautiful storage case with lid that doubles as a non-slip mat for your tools. It is quite large, but it easily holds all your accessories and you can also fit any extra attachments you may get later on, like the big volume round brush Dyson just announced.

The box contains:

• Dyson Airwrap motor/handle
• 30mm Airwrap Long Barrel
• 40mm Airwrap Long Barrel
• Coanda smoothing dryer
• Firm smoothing brush
• Soft Smoothing Brush
• Round volumizing brush
• Filter Cleaning Ring Brush

Each of the styling attachments is interchangeable and simply clicks into place on the styler.

On the motor are a handful of settings:

• Power button/Cool shot button
• 3 heat levels
• 3 airflow levels

Using Dyson Airwrap

When it comes to using the Airwrap styler, there are lots of options. I tried each of them out so I’ll share what each is designed to do.

Coanda Smoothing Dryer

Right from my very first use I loved this hairdryer. With its odd teardrop shape and strange maneuverable bar, it doesn’t look like any hairdryer I’ve ever used, and initially I was extremely sceptical it would be effective. This attachment is going to be your first step, designed to quickly rough-dry hair in preparation for styling.

While the attachment head is quite small, and the airflow nozzle rather narrow, it has the extremely helpful effect of being able to get in and under your hair and closer to your scalp, which allowed me to blow dry and create more volume than with a regular blow if you are just going for a smooth blowout, you can take it all the way to fully dry by using what Dyson calls Enhanced Coanda airflow to hide flyaways for a smoother finish.

The small bar on the nozzle helps flatten flyaways for a much smoother look.

I found in my testing it was actually quite good at getting all the sprouty hairs to lay down.

I also ended up taking this on a recent trip as the Airwrap and this dryer nozzle packed up much smaller than my Supersonic, and I could also bring other styling tools too.

Smoothing Brushes

If you want a little more straight and swingy hair, you can choose between the two brushes in the kit; there’s what’s called the Firm brush and the Soft brush. While I tried them both, I didn’t notice any difference between them, at least not on my hair. If one of these works for you on a different hair type, I’d love to know more about it so please share the details in Comments.

In my testing, the brush attachments did a good job of creating a sleek and slightly more volumized blowout than the Coanda smoothing dryer alone. This attachment is also the one you want if you like to blow dry your hair with a brush or brush styler. You can absolutely take your hair from damp to fully dry with these attachments on the air wrap and get a really polished look.

Round volumizing brush

I wasn’t sure the brush was going to work for my hair, and admittedly it’s a bit small for my long hair (it measures about 1.5 inches to my eye; Dyson doesn’t declare a size here which is odd, since there are now three different brushes and not having sizes makes them harder to shop. There is a smaller brush attachment than this one, so I’ll refer to it as the medium volumizing brush for now; Dyson also announced a large round brush in fall 2023 also, which I actually think is far better suited to the AirWrap long than this one (and I’m betting that will come on all newer kits ).

Despite its smaller size, it does do a great job at smoothing and drying, so it makes me think the larger brush is going to be a massive winner for me, and I’ll likely pick that up as soon as it’s available (not at publication time). It doesn’t give as much volume as I want but it’s great for smoothing.

Airwrap Curling barrels

I was possibly most excited to try the curling barrels since Dyson is much hyped Coanda effect lets you curl your hair with one hand. The Coanda effect pulls hair onto the barrel of the wand and wraps it around with mild tension, holding it in place while it heats the curl.

Each barrel has a nub on the end which allows you to switch the airflow so you can curl hair away from your face, depending which side you’re using it on. This may not make sense now but it will if you ever use it. **Demo

In my review period I found the curling takes a long time. Because the barrel will only handle small amounts of longer hair, and it simply won’t load any larger pieces, it can take quite a while to do an entire head of hair. Plus you need to hold the hiar on the barrel for 10-15 seconds per pice so it gets hot enough to hold, add a few seconds for your cool shot too.

When I was done, I found that for the most part everything above my jawline was kind of flat; more like a smooth blowout then curls; and then everything below the jawline was very 70s; kind of like Farrah Fawcett hair.

The curl also didn’t seem to hold for very long. I felt like before I had even left the bathroom many of the longest pieces of hair had already largely straightened out.

Determined to make this expensive tool work for me I tried it again numerous times and ended up watching a few tutorial videos for some tips.

One of the recommendations was to make absolutely sure to give each curl a cool shot before it was released. The other was to shut the air off before releasing the curl.

It took some practice, but both of those things seemed to help.

The trouble with stronger curls is that, for me and my hair, and the look I’m going for, the parts that are the most curled are mainly the ends. In fact it curls the end so strongly that they are about the only thing that remains curly; meaning that once the rest of your hair has relaxed, you might look like Farrah Fawcett from the 1970s. The curls seemed to me to be too sweet and princessey with the ends all flipped up as they were. Not my style.

It was back to YouTube to get some more tips. Shoutout to YouTuber Alex Gabourey for how to get a beachy wave, by suggesting using the curling barrels more like a traditional heated curling wand; and by that I mean holding onto the end of your hair and wrapping it more deliberately around the Dyson barrel, and keeping the end off the barrel altogether. I gave this method a shot and found it was able to produce a much looser curl that looked a lot less vintage, but on my hair, and it held for a bit longer.

A couple takeaways I found; it definitely takes about 15 seconds to lock in the waves. And it absolutely helps to have very clean hair any time you’re using this device to curl; the Airwrap just can’t seem to stand up to a bit of oil in the hair like a curling wand or iron can.

Overall review: Dyson Airwrap styler

Overall, it’s taken me some time to get on board with this device. While I was all over the dryer, it took me some learning to embrace the curling wand… but I’m coming around.

On the pro side, this is a versatile kit; from drying to smoothing blowouts and even curls and waves it can do a lot of different things. The attachments for the most part work very well; I will call out the smaller round brush though and say I hope newer versions of this kit get the new, larger brush. Using the Airwrap doesn’t feel too harsh on my hair and the overall effects are pretty good. Having the case to store it all in is nice too, and I like that the parts all come apart so you can travel with the Airwrap as well.

On the flip side of having the case, it is quite large and I don’t have any place to store it where it fits.

Other cons… maybe not something I’ll deduct points for but know its going to take some practice and experimentation to get good results for your hair. The price is also a barrier for a lot of people.

Selling for a whopping price of about $799CAD or $599USD, this is a car payment all on its own, so you’ll want to be sure you’ve got plans to use it daily and make the most of every attachment.

But if you’ve got the money to invest in this tool it’s quite versatile and it does what it says it will do with some practice.

You can check out my other reviews of Dyson hair care products like the Dyson supersonic, or see what else Dyson is known for… right now…

Shop the Dyson Airwrap on Amazon, Best Buy or Walmart.

Also Read:

1. Dyson Airwrap: what to expect
2. Shark FlexStyle vs. Dyson Airwrap
3. Dyson New products 2023: not one but FIVE!

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