Dyson Airwrap vs Shark FlexStyle: which is the best premium multistyler hair tool?

Table Of Content

• Shark style iQ
• Shark FlexStyle vs. Dyson Airwrap
• Shark HyperAIR vs Dyson Supersonic: Price
• Shark has launched its first-ever hair dryer, but how does it compare to Dyson’s supersonic?
• Shark HD430 FlexStyle Air Styling & Drying System
• Shark Flexstyle vs. Dyson Airwrap: Paddle Brush
• Shark FlexStyle or Dyson Airwrap: Which Styling Tool Is for You?
• 1How does Shark’s first-ever hair dryer compare to Dyson’s supersonic?

Keep tabs on the SpeedStyle, especially around big shopping moments, and you may be able to snag it at a budget-friendly price. She tested countless health and wellness products from 2016 to 2018. Of the Dyson Supersonic lookalikes, the Karrong F350 seemed the most promising to us, but it ended up being half as fast, with no way to control speed separately from temperature—the hotter it got, the faster it got.

Shark style iQ

Before I get into the nitty-gritty comparison details, here’s some more information on both products. Victoria Woollaston is a freelance science and technology journalist with more than a decade’s experience writing for Wired UK, Alphr, Expert Reviews, TechRadar, Shortlist and the Sunday Times. She has a keen interest in next-generation technology and its potential to revolutionise how we live and work. There used to be a blue and copper version but this appears to have been discontinued with the release of the blue and rose model. Keep reading for our in-depth comparison of the Dyson Airwrap versus the Shark FlexSyle air styling system to see who comes out on top.

Shark FlexStyle vs. Dyson Airwrap

For the initial iteration of this guide, we timed the models drying a swatch of hair from a wig wetted with 5 grams of water, with the dryers on their highest setting. Shannon Palus reviewed hair dryers for Wirecutter from 2015 to 2017. Among the models we tested, it tied for blowing the hottest and fastest air. On a related note, Shark doesn’t currently offer a case or carrying bag for the FlexStyle.

15 best hair dryers tested by our beauty team 2024 - Cosmopolitan UK

15 best hair dryers tested by our beauty team 2024.

Posted: Mon, 25 Mar 2024 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Shark HyperAIR vs Dyson Supersonic: Price

Like sisters from different corporate misters, the $600 Dyson Airwrap and $300 Shark FlexStyle are both multipurpose styling tools that can dry, straighten, and curl hair. They not only look extremely similar but also perform in nearly identical ways. The Shark HyperAir looks like a dupe for the double-the-price Dyson Supersonic. It forgoes a long barrel and instead opts for a short, wide one that, like the Dyson, acts as the control center with three buttons for air and three for heat settings. Both sets of buttons even light up white and red, respectively, like the Dyson.

Shark has launched its first-ever hair dryer, but how does it compare to Dyson’s supersonic?

If you want to just dry your hair, or remove excess moisture before switching to one of the other attachments on the FlexStyle, you can simply rotate the barrel on the FlexStyle and use it as you would a standard dryer. Each of the attachments across both stylers are twisted and locked into place at the top of the main barrel. They can only then be removed when the unlock switch (depicted with an open lock icon) on the side of each styler is activated.

Shark HD430 FlexStyle Air Styling & Drying System

The attachments are the essence of these multi-stylers, and both brands feature slightly different ... Truthfully, the Dyson Airwrap has held a permanent spot in my collection for a while now, but in my quest to find the best blow dryer brushes on the market, I finally gave the Shark FlexStyle Air Styling and Drying System a go. While they may seem nearly identical on the surface, I took them both for a side-by-side spin to see how they measured up. Despite both brands’ promises about effortless curling, neither work as well as expected.

The Conair 1875-Watt 3-in-1 Ionic Styler has a long row of grills (and a brush attachment) instead of a circular nozzle. It gives you no way to attach a diffuser, which means you’re stuck with a single-purpose dryer. Compared with the Rusk W8less, the Amika Accomplice Compact Dryer (currently unavailable) is heavier, limited to a lower max temperature (215 °F), and double the price. However, its 9.5-foot cord ties with that of the GHD Helios for the second-longest cord among the dryers we’ve tried. Despite the Supersonic’s flaws, compared with other dryers we’ve tested, this one truly feels like a luxury to use every day.

Shark FlexStyle or Dyson Airwrap: Which Styling Tool Is for You?

But the FlexStyle—which, unlike the Airwrap, can in effect replace a traditional hair dryer—is a superior value overall. Teich noted in her use of both brands that the Shark Flexstyle has noticeably shorter curling barrels, which may leave users with longer hair with less real estate for styling purposes compared to the Dyson Airwrap. On the other hand, Shark’s paddle brush features both boar and pin bristles and does not have the Coanda effect, making it prone to creating more frizz.

1How does Shark’s first-ever hair dryer compare to Dyson’s supersonic?

Both the Shark and Dyson tools set themselves apart from the pack with their high-tech use of air-manipulating technology and multiple attachments. They each use the Coanda effect, which takes a spinning vortex of air to wrap hair around the curvature of the barrel, curling and giving it volume and shape. Both tools are streamlined and durable, and switching from one attachment to the next was as easy as it gets. Like all hair dryer brushes I tested, both feature a cool shot, which works well for locking in the style.

As with any hairstyling tool, a learning curve is involved, and depending on your skills and hair type, you might find your styling efforts falling flat over time (though that’s a possibility with any styling tool). The $600 Dyson Airwrap, which launched in 2018, has the same drying, straightening, and curling capabilities. But unlike the FlexStyle, it cannot completely replace a traditional hair dryer, as it is meant to get hair only semi-dry before you use the other attachments, though some people do find it adequate for their drying needs. My main two gripes with the hair dryer are related to its ease of use.

Both the Airwrap and FlexStyle are streamlined and durable, and switching from one attachment to the ... The FlexStyle’s barrel measures 11.5 inches (29cm) without attachments, while the Airwrap is 10.25 inches (26cm) long. When the FlexStyle barrel is rotated, this overall length drops to 8.5 inches (21.5cm).

According to our Beauty Lab assessments, Shark's curlers replicated Dyson Airwrap's Coanda effect, creating robust, tighter waves on hair. But the most notable feature of the Shark FlexStyle is its lockable, twistable rod to accommodate different hair drying and styling methods. Shark also offers a diffuser attachment equipped with extendable prongs to accommodate all sorts of hair types, which Dyson lacks. The Dyson Airwrap neither swivels into a hair dryer nor comes with concentrator nozzle — though, it comes with a rough dry/flyaway attachment to get hair partially dry before styling more heavily.

The Dyson Supersonic weighs 1.8 pounds, which is lighter than the average hair dryer but slightly heavier than the Shark SpeedStyle. We found the difference in weight between the two to be negligible, and we couldn’t tell the difference when drying hair. Like the Shark SpeedStyle, the Dyson Supersonic has four heat settings.

If you’re on the hunt for a hair tool that will completely revitalize your at-home blowouts, you really can’t go wrong with either hair styler. The Dyson has all the bells and whistles of a luxury splurge tool, while the Shark harnesses similar technology, offers a more diverse set of attachments and provides the same glossy, runway-style hair. Both products have three airflow settings, but we preferred the increments on the Dyson to those on the Shark. While the Dyson’s three heat settings increased in regular increments with a good balance between them, we noticed a significant difference between the Shark’s Medium and High settings. In our experience, the Medium setting was a bit too low to get hair dry quickly. When we used the High setting, we could dry hair very quickly, but it was blown around so forcefully that it caused tangles, which can lead to hair breakage.

However, the Dyson attachments are more sleek and compact compared to those on the FlexStyle. Both the oval and paddle brushes on the Shark model are on the large side, much larger than the size of a regular hairbrush. On the flip side, however, these large dimensions are also what makes the styler well suited to longer, thicker hair. The UK and Australian models additionally come with a filter cleaning brush. This filter brush is more to do with the maintenance of the styler rather than styling itself so is a relatively small omission in the US version.

Although some dryers achieved faster wind speeds than others, interestingly that didn’t end up translating to notably or consistently faster dry times once we used them on our hair. A Dyson Supersonic Hair Dryer costs $430, while the Shark FlexStyle clocks in at $300 for either the straight or curly hair option (the build-your-own option costs $280). Obviously, there’s a pretty clear winner here when it comes to price. I will mention that I’ve had my Supersonic for more than two years now and it works just as well as the day it came out of the box. Having only had a FlexStyle for a couple months, I can’t speak to its durability or longevity.