Best Hair Dryers UK 2026: Six Models Scored on Speed, Heat and Value

The Nural is Dyson's Supersonic with sensors added. A distance sensor reads how close the dryer is to your head and turns the heat down near the scalp, aiming for 55°C. Heat settings are 100°C, 80°C, 60°C and a 28°C cool setting.

On speed it is strong but not the fastest. Mamabella dried mid-length hair from wet to styled in about ten minutes. TechRadar found the ghd Speed clearly more powerful on maximum. Good Housekeeping's lab, testing the standard Supersonic, recorded the best airflow and fastest drying of any dryer it had tried.

Heat control scores 96, the highest here. Good Housekeeping's lab found the Supersonic ran at lower temperatures than the average dryer. The Nural adds the scalp sensor on top. It also comes with five attachments, the most in this group, so the kit score is 96 too.

Value is the weak spot at 55. Dyson sells it for £349.99, down from a £399.99 launch price. The cheaper BaByliss Air Power Pro comes within two points on the Index.

The Air Power Pro uses a 1,700W digital motor. BaByliss quotes air speed of up to 228km/h. Les Numériques measured 22.6m/s at 20cm with no nozzle, the strongest in its comparison at the time. It measured air temperature at just 54.9°C without a nozzle, which helps the heat score.

It is light. Les Numériques weighed it at 401g and The Independent's reviewer at 380g, against 600g for her Dyson. One BaByliss shop reviewer weighed 767g, which likely included the cord. Argos lists 0.82kg. We used the body-only figure, as we do for every dryer here.

Noise measured 75.6dB in the same French test, among the lowest it had seen. The reviewer did note the sound was high-pitched. Drying times reported in UK reviews were close to the Dyson: The Independent's reviewer rough-dried and styled in about ten minutes, the same as with her Supersonic.

At £100 at Argos and John Lewis, against a £150 list price, with a diffuser and two nozzles included and a 3-year guarantee, it has the best value score of the top four.

The SpeedStyle Pro HD701UK is the dryer-only version of Shark's SpeedStyle range. It has a 1,750W motor, three airflow and five heat settings, and a Scalp Shield mode that cuts the temperature for drying at the roots. Shark says it measures temperature 1,000 times a second and caps it at 110°C.

Expert Reviews measured 26.2m/s on the earlier SpeedStyle, which it called the third-fastest dryer it had tested. Its reviewer rough-dried hair with the concentrator in well under five minutes. TechRadar, quoted in other coverage, timed about 3.5 minutes for thick shoulder-length hair.

The kit is thin. This version comes with only the turbo concentrator. A diffuser and brushes cost £29.99 each from Shark. If you have curly hair, the 5-in-1 HD752UK bundle at £179.99 from Currys is the better route.

At £114.99 direct from Shark, it scores 84 for value. Weight is unclear: Shark lists 340g and Currys lists 750g. We scored handling at 78 to reflect that doubt.

The Helios has been ghd's main dryer since 2020. It uses a 2,200W brushless motor and a contoured nozzle that ghd calls Aeroprecis. Air speed is quoted at 120km/h.

Speed is its strength. Mamabella's test dried fine, mid-length hair from wet in 1 minute 6 seconds, against 2 minutes 6 seconds for the Dyson Supersonic. Styling with the nozzle took 2 minutes 20 seconds. That earns a speed score of 90.

It is the heaviest dryer here at 780g, and it only has three heat settings with no scalp mode, so handling and heat score lower. Mamabella also found it left fine hair a little flat. It draws more power too: Les Numériques measured 2,105W against 1,526W for the Dyson Supersonic.

At £189 with a 2-year guarantee, value is good. But the BaByliss and Shark cost less and score higher overall.

The Speed launched in February 2026 as ghd's fastest dryer. A 118,000rpm brushless motor drives air at up to 176km/h, according to ghd. A ring of cooler air surrounds the heated stream, which ghd says lowers hair surface temperature by up to 20°C against the Helios.

It scores 96 for speed. Expert Reviews rough-dried long, thick hair in about four minutes, and Mamabella called it the fastest dryer it had used, at about six minutes for mid-length hair. TechRadar found it hotter and more powerful than the Dyson Nural on maximum settings.

Handling is its weak point at 58. Expert Reviews weighed it at 620g and found it top-heavy, with arm ache during round-brush styling. It measured 92dB at full speed, loud enough to wake someone in the next room.

At £299 it costs £110 more than the Helios. It comes with one magnetic nozzle, and a diffuser, comb and wide nozzle are £30 each.

The Remington ONE is the budget pick. It uses a 2,000W motor with air speed quoted at 120km/h, and Remington claims 25% faster drying than its standard dryers. There is no brushless motor, and we found no independent speed tests, so it scores 70.

The box is the best equipped after the Dyson. It includes a slim concentrator, a flyaway tamer, a gentle drying diffuser and a curl-defining diffuser. A Thermacare sensor regulates the air temperature, and there are eight heat and speed combinations.

Remington gives a 3-year guarantee plus an extra year if you register within 28 days. At £66.66 at Argos, against £99.99 at Remington and Boots, it scores 92 for value, the best here.

Remington does not publish its weight on its UK page, so we scored handling at 60, below the light brushless models.