Dyson launches Supersonic hair dryer, letting people use its bladeless fans to style their hair for £299

The new hair dryer looks little like previous hair dryers, with none of the long top that usually sits at the top of them, and costs a lot more than previous models too

Andrew Griffin
Wednesday 27 April 2016 05:52 BST
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Dyson has released its latest product: a hair dryer.

The company best known for vacuums and then fans has turned that same technology onto people’s heads, releasing a new hair dryer that looks a little like its bladeless fan heaters.

As with many of Dyson's products, customers will have to pay up for the hair dryer's striking design. It will cost £299 when it launches in the UK later this year – twice that of salon-grade hair dryers from competing companies.

The new Supersonic looks like a long stick with a tiny version of those fans at the top. That means that it avoids the usual gun-like design of other hair dryers, instead going straight up – and, according to Dyson, being much easier to control.

It says that the relatively expensive piece of kit will allow people to dry their hair more comfortably and with more control, and also avoid problems with previous technology like overheating and the problem of getting hair trapped in them.

“Hair dryers can be heavy, inefficient and make a racket,” said James Dyson, the company’s founder. “By looking at them further we realised that they can also cause extreme heat damage to hair.

“I challenged Dyson engineers to really understand the science of hair and develop our version of a hair dryer, which we think solves these problems.”

Paralysed man able to play video games thanks to a computer chip in his brain

Dyson says that since the hair dryer uses its small but strong and fast motors, which is mounted in the handle, it has been able to vastly shrink the usual size of a hair dryer. It has also designed that motor to make much less noise, by pushing the tone of the motor above the range heard by humans and so giving the product its name.

The Supersonic will initially launch in Asia, but will come to the UK in June. It will sell for around £299.

Dyson said that it has been developing the hair dryer for four years, and spent almost £50 million on creating it. That process has used up 1010 miles of human hair for testing, it said.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in