The short answer
There isn't a best styling tool, and anything that names one without asking about your hair is an ad. Three answers decide it for you: do you start from wet hair or dry, how many minutes do you really have on a weekday morning, and will you section your hair or not. Be honest about the third one.
Everything on the shelf is a version of four things. Once you know which of the four you need, a shortlist of thirty becomes a shortlist of three.
The four kinds of tool
| Type | What it's for | Who gets on with it |
|---|---|---|
| Hair dryer | Wet to dry, and setting the shape everything else builds on | Anyone who washes in the morning |
| Straightener | Smoothing, and curls if you learn the wrist | People who want one predictable result |
| Blow-dry or thermal brush | Drying and smoothing in the same pass, with root lift | Long hair, and anyone tired of juggling a round brush and a dryer |
| Multi-styler or air styler | Airflow plus heat, wrapping rather than clamping, several attachments | People who want more than one look and will keep the box |
Very long hair changes this. A dryer that is fine on a bob is an arm workout at hip length, and a 25mm barrel takes forever. Weight and airflow matter more than attachment count once you are drying a metre of hair.
What the testers picked
Who What Wear UK's multi-styler test put the Dyson Airwrap first overall and named the Remington Curl and Straight Confidence Air Styler AS8606 its value pick. Worth knowing, worth reading the way you would read any list: those verdicts came off somebody else's head, on their hair, in their bathroom.
Several other round-ups get quoted around this subject. We left them out, because we could not find the articles themselves to check what they actually said.
The questions the box doesn't answer
What temperature does it reach? "Styles without extreme heat" is positioning, not a number. Manufacturers publish the range somewhere. Find it.
Who handles the warranty here? A grey import can mean posting a faulty tool overseas at your own cost. Check the Australian listing, and keep the receipt.
Are spare attachments sold in Australia? One proprietary part that nobody stocks locally can end a $500 tool.
How heavy is it, and how loud? Neither is on the front of the box, and both decide whether a tool gets used on a Tuesday or lives in the cupboard.
How much sectioning does it need? Auto-wrapping barrels and rotating brushes cut the work, but most still reward patience. If you won't section, buy for that.
Cost per use, not the sticker price
Take the price, divide by the number of times you will switch it on. Our four styling tools, at what Amazon Australia is charging today and assuming three mornings a week for two years:
| Tool | Price | Per use |
|---|---|---|
| Shark FlexStyle 2-in-1 Air Styler | $299 | $0.96 |
| GHD Chronos Straightener | $349 | $1.12 |
| Dyson Supersonic Nural Hair Dryer | $444 | $1.42 |
| Dyson Corrale Straightener | $542.99 | $1.74 |
The gap between the cheapest and the dearest here works out at a few cents a morning, which is the argument for buying the one you will actually reach for. It is also the argument against a second tool bought in the same month as the first.
Where that maths turns uncomfortable is the tool that comes out three times a year. A $542.99 straightener used before a wedding, a birthday and one Christmas party is costing you about $181 an occasion in its first year, and what the money bought was the missing cable. We wrote about that trade-off in the Corrale against the GHD Chronos, and about dryers in the Nural against the FlexStyle.
Five minutes, then buy
- Write down your real routine in minutes. Include the days you do nothing to it.
- Decide: wet hair or dry. That answer removes half the market.
- Pick the one tool type that matches.
- Shortlist two or three models, not ten.
- Check the Australian warranty, the spare parts and the return window before you pay.
What I wouldn't buy
- A bundle built around attachments I can't name a use for.
- Anything with proprietary parts no Australian retailer stocks on its own.
- A listing that won't publish a temperature range.
- A tool picked because it topped one list, without checking whether the tester's hair looks anything like mine.
The limitation on all of this: we sell four styling tools and have opinions about them, and those opinions earn a commission. The four-type framework above is the part that holds whatever you buy and wherever you buy it. The hair care page has the prices we can vouch for today.