Some of us like the little foldaway travel-style blow dryers and some of us prefer to pull out the monstrous, tangle-ridden bump and fall to the ground blow dryers. Sound familiar? Well its time to inspect what you have been using and or hiding away in your vanity. Anything that plugs in can start a fire. You should inspect the cord periodically and never wrap it up like a puzzle for storage next to your sink.



Heat is a great enemy to your hair. That means hair dryers must be used with great care and on a moderate setting. A blow dryer on its hottest setting will reach temperatures above that at which water boils. This can be disastrous on the hair.

The best choices for Blow Dryers and their care:

It seems the ION hair dryer includes all the bells the whistles. It offers technologies separately or together, with ionic only, ionic and ceramic, and ceramic only settings. A full complement of features includes several heat settings and speeds, a quiet motor, concentrator attachment and a hinged filer for cleaning. Your best bet for one of these would be Tourmaline, BaByliss, and Revlon.

There is a huge price difference between professional and home hair dryers. You get a longer duty cycle for the extra money. Professional hair dryers are supposed to last for 1200 hours where as the more inexpensive blow dryer lasts about 500 hours. Professional hair dyers are also generally larger and generate more airflow than consumer blow dryers.

For an inexpensive, professional hair dryer, we found the Tourmaline has rave reviews. This dryer is different from other blow dryers because of its crushed tourmaline jewels, which generate more negative ions than any other mineral. The jewels are injected into all the dryer compartments. It the only dryer with a true ceramic heater coil. It weighs only 13 ounces and packs a whopping 1800-watt motor.

If you're looking for a travel dryer with the same power as a full sized model, the CONAIR ION Shine Folding Handle Blow Dryer has 1875 watts with ionic technology to reduce frizz and offers two heat/speed settings. It has a concentrator, removable filer and a cool-shot button with a quiet tone motor.

The most important feature of a blow dryer, airflow, depends on its motor. However, unless you buy your dryer from a beauty-supply store that lets you test it first, there's really no way to determine motor quality before you plunk down your money. Powerful motors reduce drying time, but some also sound an awful lot like jets taking off in your bathroom. Blow-dryer manufacturers are addressing this by developing quieter motors. For example, several of the CONAIR Ion Shine hair dryers feature a Quiet-Tone motor.

I say the best blow dryers should have the following features:

Power of 1200 - 1500 watts for fine/damaged hair, and 1875 watts for thick, wavy hair.

Two or three heat settings.

Automatic shut-off if the dryer overheats.

A cool setting for a cool-shot button to set your hairstyle.

A removable air intake grill/lint filter.

I wish you happy heating, curling, waving, and styling. And remember to check out your existing hair dryer and keep it safe, clean and stored properly.