8 Best Hair Dryer Brushes of 2024

The easiest way to get salon quality blowouts at home in one easy step.

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A 2-in-1 hair styling solution, a blow dryer brush styles and dries hair in one step, combining the styling skill of a large round brush with the drying power of a hair dryer. Bristles detangle and smooth hair while heat dries it for a bouncy, smooth, salon-level blowout in a single step, and usually in less time than a traditional hair dryer/brush combo.

Our pros test and vet hundreds of hair products a year, including styling tools like the best straightening irons and hair straightening brushes, hair brushes and more. In our most recent test of hair dryer brushes in the Good Housekeeping Institute Beauty Lab, our experts evaluated 10 products for ease of use, performance, drying time and more. After evaluating the results from our testing (including nearly 11,000 temperature readings!), we've rounded up the best of the best.

Heat settings: 3 | Cord length: 9.6 ft. | Bristles: Nylon ball-tipped pins & boar-style | Weight: 1.3 lb.

Get a shiny, salon-caliber blow-out at home with this easy-to-hold Amika blowdryer brush: 100% of testers agreed this brush was best for creating perfect style and volume on all hair types. Testers found this gives a pro-level blow dry while boosting hair’s fullness, all while having gentle heat. "I also liked that they use two types of bristles (short and long) as it grabbed the strands of hair and glided through," said one.

This pick has the longest cord for easy styling and was the only winner with wrap for storage. It's also the quietest hair dryer brush we tested, although we do wish it had a cool setting to help lock in styles.

Heating settings: 3 | Cord length: 6 ft. | Bristles: Nylon ball-tipped pins & tufted bristles | Weight: 1.3 lb.

With over 470,000 Amazon reviews, Revlon's cult fave One-Step Hair Dryer and Volumizer lives up to its reputation: It achieved the fastest rate of drying hair in Beauty Lab testing. The brush's shape allows for smoothing and glides easily through even the roughest hair textures. “I liked how the brush head was large, which allowed it to dry more hair at once,” a tester reported.

“It was good for creating smooth, straight hairstyles,” said another tester, and I agree: It makes quick work of transforming my curly, frizz-prone hair into a silky-smooth style. The tool also ranked highly for having simple-to-follow instructions and making hair look shinier.

The downside: It does get exceedingly hot during use, so be careful not to use it on soaking wet hair and use it alongside a heat protectant. For a gentler option, Revlon launched the One-Step Volumizer Plus, which features a new medium temperature/speed setting. It operates at the same temperature as the low setting but with a higher airflow. The Plus also has a much stronger airflow than the original version, per Beauty Lab testing, a slightly narrower barrel and a detachable base for easy storage and travel.

READ OUR FULL REVIEW: The Five-Star Revlon One-Step Hair Dryer Brush Is a Total Game Changer

Heat settings: 3 | Cord length: 8 ft. | Bristles: Various; nylon & boar on oval brush | Weight: 1.6 lb.

Most blow dryer brushes are already perfect for curly-haired people since they combine smoothing and blow drying into one streamlined step, but if you want to embrace your texture, this pick is unique because it allows you to style natural hair straight or curly, thanks to diverse attachments and a swiveling base that also lets the tool function as a traditional hair dryer/diffuser combo.

The brand claims the tool is less damaging than other tools, and we found it operates around 183ºF on average. One Beauty Lab analysis confirmed it had one of the fastest drying times we've seen. One tester with thick, curly hair loved the smoothing brush and found that styles lasted for days.

When I tested the Shark FlexStyle, I was impressed by its power, airflow and versatility. I love that it comes with so many attachments, and that the diffuser has adjustable prongs to suit different hair lengths. It is definitely expensive and a bit heavier than a traditional hair dryer brush. I thought the tool was a bit hot and didn't produce the smoothest-looking style, but the versatility makes it worth it.

READ OUR FULL REVIEW: Is the Shark FlexStyle Hair Dryer Really a "Dyson Airwrap Dupe"?

Heat settings: 3 | Cord length: 8 ft. | Bristles: Nylon ball-tipped pins & boar-style bristles | Weight: 1.4 lb.

Hot Tools won the gold for effortlessly combing through and speedily styling even dense, coarse or curly strands. We also found that it was the simplest to use compared with the other models, thanks to a rotating temperature control with three heat settings and vent platforms for faster drying on even super thick and curly strands.

In Beauty Lab evaluations, 100% of expert testers found that it styled hair fast and combed through strands with ease, although it's among the heaviest traditional blow dryer brush we tested, so be prepared to put some elbow grease into perfecting your 'do. “I was surprised by the speed and how fast my hair went from wet to dry,” a user commented.

Heat settings: 3 | Cord length: 8.9 ft. | Bristles: Nylon ball-tipped pins & tufted bristles | Weight: 1.3 lb.

In Beauty Lab evaluations, we found that this efficient hair dryer brush had the gentlest heat among the products we tested, reaching a maximum temperature of 167°F over five minutes of use, nearly 100ºF lower than the competition — meaning it will prevent hair, (especially thin, fine strands) from getting overly exposed to heat while still effectively styling.

The brush’s narrow barrel and smaller surface area make it ideal for fine or short to medium-length hair. Minus the cord, the brush itself weighs in at just under a pound, and one tester found it comfortable to hold and that the brush combed easily through her hair.

“I got great volume with this, yet my hair felt really smooth — it was comparable to a blow-out from a salon,” another said. “Much better results than using a regular dryer and separate brush,” another user noted. It's expensive, but if you're concerned about keeping fine strands healthier long term, it may be worth the splurge.

Heat settings: 3 | Cord length: 5.8 ft. | Bristles: Nylon ball-tipped pins & tufted bristles | Weight: 1.3 lb.

In Lab tests, this brush got the highest scores for leaving hair looking shiny and frizz-free. The mixed pattern bristles give hair height and body; the longer plastic bristles detangle hair while the shorter, bushier bristles smooth hair into a glossy sheet. It's also one of the lightest-weight dryer brushes we tested, clocking in at just 1.3 pounds with its cord, so you won't get too fatigued halfway through your blowout.

However, this tool got the hottest during use in Lab tests, so be sure you use a heat protectant and use on partially-dried hair. Our testers also found there was a bit of a learning curve when it came to understanding and maneuvering this tool, and we wish there was a cool shot button.

Heat settings: 3 | Cord length: 8.5 ft. | Bristles: Various; firm plastic, ball-tipped plastic, nylon pin | Weight: 1.5 lb.

This do-it-all dryer comes with useful attachments for blowing out hair straight, including a pre-styling dryer, a firm smoothing brush, a soft smoothing brush and a round volumizing brush, in addition to two curling attachments for creating curls. The paddle brushes use Coanda technology to guide air flow down the shaft of the hair, mimicking a salon blowout, which is highly effective but takes some getting used to at first.

What makes it even more amazing? It combines powerful airflow with controlled heat to dry your hair as it styles with less damage, making it a favorite amongst GH Beauty Lab pros.

Personally, I use it regularly because the Airwrap is the only hair dryer brush I can count on to keep my hair straight and less damaged than traditional counterparts. Dyson also recently launched an Airwrap for curly hair that comes, for the first time ever, with a diffuser and an even larger round brush to add more volume. This is an upgrade I love for catering to natural curls.

READ OUR FULL REVIEW: We Tried Dyson's New Airwrap and the Results Were Surprising

Heat settings: 3 | Cord length: Not listed | Bristles: Boar-style | Weight: 1.9 lb.

If your arms get tired from pulling hair round and round, snag this rotating pick that basically does the work for you. The smaller-than-average 1 ½-inch barrel is perfect for shorter styles, and the spinning mechanism rotates in two directions to create natural-looking curls and waves on dry hair in between washes.

While we haven't tested this pick in the Lab, the brand claims the ceramic technology dries damp strands and adds lasting shine, although some reviewers say that the rotating mechanism takes some getting used to at first.

In our most recent hair dryer brush tests, we evaluated 10 oval dryer brushes with Lab tests and at-home usability tests. In the Lab, we assessed drying speed and air flow and used thermocouples to measure each tool's temperature — our Lab pros logged 10,980 temperature readings as part of this test.

We also measured quantitative factors like weight, size and cord length, and partnered with Quiet Mark, a third-party certifier, to assess each tool's loudness. At home, our expert testers evaluated the dryer brushes and filled out a detailed survey on ease of use, performance and overall satisfaction. After parsing through the data from 784 questions gathered from 49 questionnaires, we found the very best hair dryer brushes you can buy.

✔️ Heat settings: Multiple heat settings are ideal to work on a range of hair types and textures; lower heat settings are great for fine or damaged hair while higher heat settings are good on healthy or thicker, coarser hair types. Our Beauty Lab pros recommend a tool with a cool shot to help seal in styles as well.

✔️ Bristles: Most hair dryer brushes are made with either pin bristles or boar-type bristles, or a combination of both. Pin bristles do a good job at detangling hair, while boar bristles grip and smooth hair (though they can sometimes add too much tension, we found in Lab tests). If you're looking to smooth out frizz or make hair look super shiny, look for a dryer brush with boar-style bristles. If you're more focused on detangling, pin bristles are great. In expert evaluations, some testers liked bristles of varying lengths to grab every last hair.

✔️ Cord length: The length of cord you'll need depends on where you'll be styling and if there's an outlet nearby. For ultimate flexibility, look for a professional-length cord of at least eight feet. Less expensive models tend to have shorter cords, but that may limit your ability to style freely — you may not have an outlet near a mirror!

✔️ Ease of use: In our tests, ease of use, comfort when styling and intuitiveness of the controls are all important considerations. Look for a tool that feels balanced in your hand, easy to grip and isn't too heavy.

Like any hot tool, they can be if you don't prep hair properly. Exposing hair to excessive heat for long periods of time can cause damage to the structure of hair, so to prevent excessive damage, our Beauty Lab pros recommend coating hair in a heat protectant before use and letting hair partially air dry before using a hair dryer brush.

Good Housekeeping Editorial Commerce Director Jessica Teich has over 10 years of experience formally researching, testing and writing about haircare products, from hair tools like curling irons and wands and flat irons and many of the hair dryer brushes on this list. An authority on (and a guinea pig for testing) new-to-market tools on curly hair, she regularly teams up with GH's Beauty Lab to synthesize its data in putting together product reviews on the very best haircare on the market, according to testing.

For this story, she worked closely with Danusia Wnek, a senior chemist in the Beauty, Health & Sustainability Lab, who has a B.S. in chemistry from St. John’s University, an M.S. in pharmaceutical sciences with a concentration in cosmetic science from the University of Cincinnati and over 10 years of experience in the personal care industry including formulation, product development, claim evaluation and efficacy testing. Danusia has spent a decade researching and developing testing protocols for haircare products for the Good Housekeeping Institute, and led testing for GH's most recent hair dryer brush test, providing robust data and results on usage and claims from experts and Lab tests.

Jessica (she/her) is the director of editorial commerce and product reviews with over a decade of experience as a product tester, reviewer, writer and editor of beauty and lifestyle content. Previously she was the beauty editor at USA Today's Reviewed where she launched the Beauty vertical and tested hundreds of products and has covered trends for publications like The Boston Globe and The New York Times. You can usually find her sorting through piles of beauty products — and testing the best ones on camera.

Danusia (she/her) is a senior chemist in the Beauty, Health and Sustainability Lab at the Good Housekeeping Institute where she evaluates haircare, skincare, cosmetics and beauty tools. She holds a B.S. in chemistry from St. John’s University and a M.S. in pharmaceutical sciences with concentration in cosmetic science from the University of Cincinnati. Danusia has over 10 years of experience in the personal care industry including formulation, product development, claim evaluation and efficacy testing.

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