The best hair styler 2025: effective tools to shape, smooth and sculpt

One of the best hair stylers could transform your morning routine. These tools can help you smooth, dry, curl and shape your locks – and sometimes all of the above, using different attachments. In this guide, we've rounded up a range of tried and tested multi-stylers, all of which can help you achieve salon-worthy looks with minimal time and effort.

Of course, not all hair styler tools are created equal, and some are more suited to particular hair types, lengths or styles. Our experts have put all these stylers through their paces and can recommend who they will and won't suit. Many of these tools can be used to dry and smooth hair, but if you'd prefer a dedicated tool we have separate guides to the best hair dryers and best hair straighteners on the market. Want something more versatile? Read on for our pick of the best hair stylers you can buy.

The best hair styling tool: quick list

The best multi-styler overall

Dyson's Airwrap made waves on its release in 2018 as an innovative multi-styler that can dry and style damp hair using some clever engineering to avoid the need for extreme heat. It has since been upgraded and is the best hair multi-styler on the market for most people, although its high price tag will be a barrier for many.

The Airwrap is lightweight, smartly designed and adept at creating bouncy curls, thanks to the 'Coanda' effect, which means your hair automatically wraps around the barrel. It also measures airflow and temperature in order to regulate heat and keep it below 150C / 30F – which means less heat damage over time. After a year of using it, our reviewer felt that their hair was not only shiny, but visibly healthier.

In terms of hair types, it seems best suited to those with longer hair, although shorter barrels for short hair are now available. The Airwrap has also received mixed reviews from those with Type 4 hair, although this has been improved with the release of new attachments.

The Airwrap does take a little bit of time to get used to and those that travel frequently should note that it won't work in countries with different voltage. Overall though, it's a very clever piece of kit that can yield impressive results. It's a testament to how good it is that it remains ultra-popular despite the sky-high price tag – competitors' efforts to create good dupes haven't gotten close to challenging the OG yet.

Note: There's now a newer version of the Airwrap out. It does everything this 2022 version does, but adds a companion app and automated curl sequence switch – find our more in our Dyson Airwrap vs Airwrap i.d. comparison. Full review in progress.

Read our full Dyson Airwrap review

The best affordable multi-styler

The Revamp Dynamic Radiance Pro Blow Dry 7-in-1 Ionic ​Air Styler is the best budget multi-styler we've tested, as well as being one of the best Airwrap dupes if you can't stretch to the real thing (it's UK only – US shoppers should hop down to the slightly pricier Shark FlexStyle at #5).

Like many modern multi-stylers, the design combines a tube-shaped dryer – the top of which pivots for more comfortable drying – and various attachments for different styling tasks. These include the all-important auto-wrapping curl barrels, which we found worked just as well as any we've tried (although you will have to manually swap them over when you want to switch from clockwise to anticlockwise curls, unlike on the Airwrap).

There's a decent selection of attachments – the two auto-wrap curl barrels, a concentrator, flat paddle brush, large oval bristle brush with ceramic barrel and a round barrel with retractable bristles. It's only the last of these that our tester was unimpressed with, and we particularly like the large bristle brush for adding volume. Other brands' efforts have a wider selection of compatible attachments, but most bases are covered here, with the notable exception of a diffuser.

Although it understandably doesn't feel ultra-premium, the build quality is decent and functions as intended – all the attachments clip on and off easily and feel secure in use, for example. The helpful addition of an easily accessible "pause" button means you can remove the wand without disturbing your curls. In fact, our only real complaint was that it was a little too easy to accidentally change the settings mid-style.

In general, Revamp is worth checking out if you're looking for a cheap multi-styler. The even more affordable Progloss appears in our list at #6.

Read more in our Revamp Dynamic Radiance Pro Blow Dry 7-in-1 Ionic ​Air Styler review

The best hair brush dryer

The best 2-in-1 hair dryer and brush we've tried is Revlon's Pro Collection One Step Dryer and Volumiser. This great value hot brush dryer may not be much to look at but it delivers on performance – drying our reviewer's medium-length, fine hair in three minutes and four seconds. As it's quite big, you can deal with large hair sections in one go, and you can even use it one-handed, saving you time and effort.

The temperature stays constant throughout and the design means it stays the same distance away from your head, drying your hair nice and evenly. Our reviewer was impressed by its overall performance, including the volume, shine and smoothness of her hair after using it.

On the downside, at 850g, the Revlon Pro Collection is quite heavy, but it's so quick at drying, you are unlikely to be using it for long enough to get arm ache. The various settings also seem a little redundant as our reviewer didn't notice any difference between them, apart from an irritating, loud sound on the fastest option.

Read more in our Revlon Pro Collection One Step Dryer and Volumiser review

The best straightening tool

The Dyson Airstrait uses an angled blade of focused airflow to dry and straighten at the same time. Its design has an 80s sci-fi vibe and swaps the usual straightener hot plates for unheated panels, with vents seeing to the air straightening.

At 1.18lb / 536g, the Airstrait is pretty heavy for straighteners, and has a rather unwieldy plug. The good news is that it makes light work of drying/straightening hair, with our reviewer able to achieve both in 10 minutes, less than half the time it would take to dry and straighten her hair usually (even with the likes of the Dyson Supersonic and Dyson's original straighteners, the Corrale). It has some neat features too: one that adjusts the volume of airflow when hair is in it, and another that cuts airflow when its arms have been open for more than three seconds.

Our reviewer found that there was little-to-no hair snagging or sizzling and that the Airstrait was able to dry segments of her hair with just one pass. Its results were natural-looking straight hair rather than pin straight, however, and the Airstrait can't get right up to the root, so may not be as effective for those with tight curls.

Talking of curls, what the Airstrait is not so good at is creating them – for that, you'll want the Airwrap or another multi-styler. And for those who have curly hair, traditional hot plate straighteners also seem better at holding than the Airstrait. Overall, if you have wavy or slightly curly hair and you just want to straighten it then the Airstrait may be for you. But if your hair is curlier or you want to achieve different styles, then the likes of the Airwrap or other multi-stylers on this list may be more suitable.

Read our full Dyson Airstrait review

Another versatile hair styler

The Shark FlexStyle is Shark's take on Dyson's Airwrap. It's a hair dryer that transforms into a multi-styler. There are a few variations available, like the 5-in-1 and the 4-in-1 and there's also a build your own version where you can choose the accessories included with it.

Options include a paddle brush (which our reviewer found to be particularly effective), plus an oval brush, two curlers, a styling concentrator and diffuser. These tools enable you to curl, straighten, add volume, smooth and define, and the FlexStyle employs the same Coanda effect technology as the Airwrap, attracting hair to its surface to make curling easier.

In practice, our reviewer found the FlexStyle to work well to dry hair and the brushes were intuitive to use. However, it wasn't very successful at curling hair, with a lot of trial and error involved, and any volume created didn't last.

When you add up all the attachments, the whole thing takes up a lot of space, and the 8ft cable has a large power pack about a third of the way down, making it quite unwieldy. This styler tool is best suited to those with longer, thicker hair, and those with the patience to learn how to use it properly.

Read more in our Shark FlexStyle review

The best cheap multi-styler

The Revamp Progloss Airstyle 6-in-1Air Styler DR-1250, or the Revamp Progloss, is a very budget-friendly multi-styler that comes with with six attachments – a wide-bristle brush, a paddle brush and a rotating hard bristle brush, which is designed for creating soft waves. There's also a conical attachment for creating curls, a drying attachment and a diffuser.

The dryer works well, drying our reviewer's hair in just over four minutes. And in our tests, the smaller barrel brush and paddle brush were particularly suited to fine hair. The larger rotating brush worked well in that it was easy to wind hair around the barrel, but the barrel itself was too wide for clearly defined waves on shoulder length hair, suggesting this tool may work better with longer hair. Elsewhere, our reviewer found it hard to grip the air styler when creating curls, due to the length of the handle.

The Progloss was also rather noisy at 80dB. Saying that, we'd recommend the Progloss to those who want to create a variety of styles without spending big.

Read more in our Revamp Progloss Airstyle 6-in-1Air Styler DR-1250 review

How to choose a hair styler tool

When choosing a hair styler, you first need to consider what you want to achieve. Are you looking to create waves, straight locks or to enhance or define existing curls? If there's only one style you know you'll want to create most of the time then you may want to choose a hair styler dedicated to that function, or if you want to be able to mix up styles then a multi styler may be better for you.

Also think about your hair type – some tools are better suited to some hair types than others. We've indicated where this is the case in our list.

It's also worth considering design and portability, do you need something that will travel easily or will your tool likely stay in one place? Do you have the space to keep several accessories and a large hair styler tool or do you need something that's relatively compact? Is an included carry case important to you?

Budget will also likely play a key part in your decision. The price of hair stylers ranges from relatively inexpensive 2-in-1 hair brush dryers to multi-stylers, which vary in price, with Dyson being the most expensive.