The $400 Dyson Supersonic Hair Dryer Is Maddeningly Expensive. But My Hair Loves It.

Much of the beauty of the Dyson Supersonic is its engineering of subtraction. It eliminates or majorly reduces the most annoying and laborious parts of blow-drying your hair.

The Supersonic weighs less than a pound and heats past 245 °F, and its airflow reaches 88 mph—just like the DeLorean Time Machine in Back to the Future. Though all of that didn’t produce speedier dry times than we got with our more-wallet-friendly pick, the Rusk W8less Professional 2000 Watt Dryer, in our tests, the Supersonic was significantly faster than the vast majority of dryers on the market. And it is uniquely quiet in both sound and vibration, with a handle that doesn’t quake, even on full blast.

Its biggest advancement, however, may be its compact structure. The Supersonic’s 13-blade motor is small enough (about the size of a quarter) to fit inside the handle, rather than the nozzle, so it isn’t top-heavy.

That placement also allows the Supersonic to suck air through a mesh lining around the handle’s bottom, instead of through the back of the nozzle. My hair has twice been terrifyingly sucked into the gaping back grille of other blow dryers and tangled into a scorched ball of frizz—no chance of that with the Supersonic.

My nephew’s mother, Melinda Brandt, uses a Dyson Supersonic at her perpetually booked-out, Boston-area salon Bellwether because “it’s lighter, quieter, and more comfortable to hold.” Many stylists, she notes, get carpal tunnel syndrome from straining their wrists while holding traditional, front-heavy dryers at the head to counteract its weight. Brandt says the Dyson’s construction allows you to hold it “the way you’re supposed to hold a blow dryer—on the handle.”

I’m not blow-drying eight clients a day, but I’ve always awkwardly struggled to wield a brush and dryer at the same time, and the Supersonic’s ergonomics make it so much easier to maneuver. Paired with its zippy dry times, blow-drying my hair is no longer a chore so mind-numbingly bothersome that it makes me question my adherence to heteronormative beauty standards.

Our guide writers report that no dryer will make someone’s hair more glossy or voluminous than any other dryer; these are results they attribute to technique, products, and the hair’s natural characteristics. Perhaps my hair, which is already straight, is more prone to reflecting light.

The well-balanced Supersonic’s short nozzle does make it much easier for an amateur to consistently hold at a diagonal above a section of hair. So even a klutz like me can direct the air down the shaft, instead of fumbling around, which may make it easier to smooth down the cuticles, or the scale-like, protective layers on the hair shaft. Anyone who blow-dries their hair for the smoothing effects—and not just the wet-to-dry result—is coaxing the cuticles to lie flat.

Melinda theorizes that compared with other dryers, which rely more on high heat, the Supersonic has more air power (88 mph). So you’re drying your hair faster with less potential for damaging it and, thus, diminishing its shine over time.

Some of our testers found the buttons at the top of the Supersonic dryer harder to reach, while one thought the cord was too heavy. I started blow-drying my hair so much more often that I found I needed to use a heat protectant (which you should be using with any blow dryer—oops!).

The dryer’s warranty is also just two years, which feels pretty stingy for a pricey tool advertised for its feats of engineering, and reviewers complain that the company won’t fix it after that.

But, really, the Supersonic’s biggest downside is the price. Brandt—who stresses that she values it as a professional tool—notes that “if you’re a person who doesn’t blow-dry their hair often or doesn’t have a lot of hair,” it may not be worth it.

Determining whether the Dyson Supersonic is worth it involves a highly personal calculation of financial picture, lifestyle, and that ineffable have-to-have-it factor. My suggestion is to try doing what I accidentally did: Find someone who already owns it, and ask them to let you give it a test drive. (Although we saw the Supersonic for $300 at the most-recent Amazon Prime Big Deal Days and on the Fourth of July, it’s often excluded from sales.)

The first time I walked into my local coffee shop after using my Supersonic, the baristas asked if I’d gotten a blowout and told me my hair looked amazing. Apparently, my mind was not playing tricks on me: I’d never heard that when using any other hair dryer. I used to study my stylists’ drying techniques, only to become dejected at home when my clumsy attempts to mimic their balletic movements revealed a gulf in expertise. The Supersonic seems to overcome my styling ineptitude.

When I reported the baristas’ comments back to my boyfriend, he flicked imaginary locks from his shoulder while tossing his head about, beamingly proud of his purchase—an act he repeats anytime I relay a compliment given to my Supersonic-styled tresses. We’re not alone. In online reviews, many happy husbands report that their wives love their gifted Dysons.

For us, at least, it was a high-ticket gift with a very good return—a pleasure for both the recipient and the giver.

This article was edited by Hannah Morrill and Catherine Kast.