Review: GHD Duet Blowdry Hair-Dryer Brush

I'm addicted to blow-dry brushes, full stop. I've been styling my hair almost exclusively with a blow-dry brush of some kind for the past two years, ranging from the high-end Dyson to the affordable Revlon Volumizer. All of these brushes are pretty similar in the way they dry your hair: hot air blasts out around the bristles, allowing you to style your hair while it dries. While it works well enough, it does result in some frizz and is sometimes less polished than you'd hope. Overall, they're all pretty similar.

Similar, that is, until the Duet Blowdry from GHD. While this blow-dry brush is certainly blowing air (it sounds like an airplane taking off, but also makes cute R2D2-like beeps), it's not blowing your hair around like any other brush usually would. Instead, it almost works like a diffuser, with the air exiting without blowing your hair every which way. The body of the Duet Blowdry also gets hot, acting like a cross between a blow dryer and a heat tool, delivering the smoothest blowout I've had.

It's a game changer, especially if your hair is frizz-prone or if you're someone who grabs a hair straightener after using a blow-dry brush. The only downside is the price, but with technology unlike anything you'll find in other blow-dry brushes, it's no surprise it costs extra. And it's still cheaper than a Dyson.

Tech Savvy

Photograph: Nena Farrell

The GHD Duet Blowdry's power comes from the design, both inside and out. Instead of just blowing air straight through one end to the other through the device, the Duet Blowdry has a heat exchanger at the base that separates air into 16 air chambers inside the blow-dry brush before letting it exit. Those air chambers make it easier to control the airflow and the temperature, taking away the windy experience you'll usually get and the inconsistent air temperatures, too.

Speaking of temperature, the blow-dry brush also has a heated barrel and heated bristles. There are two levels of bristles on the device, with the shorter bristles getting heated to the same temperature as the barrel. The longer bristles that will touch your scalp and skin don't get heated, so the device won't burn you. The bristles are also firm and rounded rather than wire bristles like you'd find on a hairbrush.

Photograph: Nena Farrell

GHD says the Duet Blowdry checks the surface temperature of the device 400 times per second to make sure it's maintaining the heat throughout your use—even more than the 250 times a second in GHD's similarly equipped Chronos Max hair straightener (7/10, WIRED Review). Also similar to the Chronos straightener, which has just one heat setting of 365 degrees Fahrenheit, the Blowdry only heats to a single heat level: 248 degrees Fahrenheit, which GHD says is an optimum low styling temperature. While 248 degrees is low compared to other heat tools like straighteners or curling irons, it is on the hotter end for blow-dry brushes, which often offer heat levels closer to 200 (though the highest level on some, like the Revlon, reaches up to 240 degrees).

The Duet Blowdry also promises virtually no heat damage. I think this will hugely depend on how delicate your hair is and if you're using a heat protectant as you should be, since you are using a heat tool on your hair and wet hair is especially delicate. While GHD describes this as a wet-to-dry brush, the brand says you can't really create a shape with your hair until it's 80 percent dry, but you can still use the Duet Blowdry to get your hair to that 80 percent point before using it to truly style your hair. Personally, I just wait until my hair is somewhat dry to even start using it, but you might want more drying assistance if you have longer hair.

Lovely Locks

Photograph: Nena Farrell

Whether or not the heat damage claims are true, the blowout itself is fantastic. I'm consistently impressed with how much volume I get without feeling like I'm in a wind tunnel, and I have fewer flyaways than I usually would. My blowout lasts longer, too, looking better than usual on day two or three thanks to the low-frizz results without losing volume or getting oily like my hair does after a serious hair-straightener sesh.

Is it worth the splurge? Personally, as someone who uses one of these devices after every hair wash day, it would be worth it for me. It's the best result I've gotten by far. While it is twice the price of a Drybar or T3 blow-dry brush, the less frizz and smoother results that last for days are something I'd splurge on for my everyday tool.

However, it is a bummer that for the price, you're only getting a single tool. It makes sense considering the design and technology packed into it that's specifically made for a blowout brush, and thus why it's such a good blowout brush, but other similarly priced options like the Shark FlexStyle (9/10, WIRED Recommends) or FlexFusion have a similar price point and come with multiple attachments. Still, my editor finds she still needs to follow up with a proper flat iron after a blowout with her FlexFusion, while I certainly don't need one after a morning with the Duet Blowdry.