The Best Travel Hair Dryers for Good Hair Days on Every Trip
We’ve all encountered them: tiny, wheezy hotel hair dryers that take ages to get the dampness out of your hair and fill your room with the worrisome smell of hot plastic. Sure, they’ll do in a pinch, but for those who take their travel style seriously (and we know you do), the idea of trying to coif your hair each morning with sub-standard equipment, risking frying, or frizz, or slow-drying arm fatigue simply won’t do. There is a better way. While travel dryers were once barely a step up from your average hotel freebie, new technology has created versions that operate on the level of your beloved home blow dryer. Here we’ve rounded up the best on the market for every style, budget, and size-restriction.
What to Look for in a Travel Hair Dryer
The key to finding your perfect travel dryer comes down to three factors: performance, convenience, and price. Just like you would with a full-size hair dryer at home, you want a travel dryer to provide options for both heat and speed so you can customize your styling. (If it has cool shot or ionic functions, all the better.) For convenience, size is a major factor, especially for carry-on-only packers whether that means choosing a petite appliance or one that folds down for easy packing. Likewise dual-voltage versatility (meaning it can be used in an outlet that provides the U.S. standard 120 volts or the 220-250 volts that most other countries utilize along with an adapter) can make a big impact for those who live for stamps in their passports. Price is also a consideration: Do you prefer a more expensive model that can stick with you through years of globetrotting, or do you want to pick up a bargain blower you won’t mourn too much if you accidentally forget it in a drawer in Dubai? No matter what you’re after, our picks have you covered.
Best Overall Travel Hair Dryer
Revlon 1875W Compact/Folding Handle Travel Dryer
For less than $20, this dryer comes with a fleet of features that will satisfy even the most discerning beauty junkies. Tourmaline ceramic technology helps to smooth away frizz and maintain even heat while 1875 watts offer oodles of power for fast-drying. Weighing just over a pound, the handle folds up, turning the dryer into a bundle that slots easily into a shoe bag. In addition to two heat and speed settings, the dryer also sports a cool shot button for setting styles and the dual-voltage capacity makes it perfect for use from Seattle to Shanghai.
Best Budget Travel Hair Dryer
Conair 1600 Watt Compact Hair Dryer With Folding Handle and Duel Voltage
This dryer is a fan favorite—it’s racked up nearly 1,000 five-star reviews on Amazon—thanks to its reasonable price and solid power. Those looking for a mini option will love its teensy proportions, a petite 3-inch x 4.25 inch x 7.6 inch, that folds up small enough to hold in the palm of your hand. Its weight is also a plus, clocking in right at a pound. With 1600 watts of dual-voltage power and two settings each for heat and speed, it also provides plenty of oomph to get your hair dry without accidentally frying your strands. Though it lacks some of the bells and whistles of other models, this workhorse provides lots of bang for your buck.
Best Lightweight Travel Hair Dryer
Instyler Mini Travel Dryer
When only the tiniest of dryers will do—think: the overnight bag you’re carrying on that Memorial Day Weekend jaunt to the Hamptons—this petite powerhouse blows everybody else out of the water. At a meagre 8 ounces (about the same as your morning cup of yogurt) it feels featherlight in your hand, or your over weight limit bag. However the dual-voltage option still packs plenty of punch, with two heat settings, frizz-fighting tourmaline technology, and a detachable concentrator for even faster drying results.
Fastest-Drying Travel Hair Dryer
Drybar Baby Buttercup Travel Blow-Dryer
A miniaturized version of Drybar’s fan-favorite dryer, this foldable yellow pick is beloved for its super-speedy results and the features it shares with its full-sized sister. Amenities like smoothing ion technology, two heat settings, and a cool shot button. Reviewers on Sephora rave that it’s “life-changing” and about its “super-fast” results. As an added bonus, the poppy color ensures that you’ll never accidentally leave it laying on the hotel bathroom counter in your pre-checkout rush.
Best Splurge Travel Hair Dryer
Dyson Supersonic Hair Dyer
If you’re willing to lay down the cash for an ultra-premium dryer, this slender, high-powered dryer is a sure bet beloved by stylists, celebs, and influencers alike. Though the innovative design is slightly larger than some of the travel-specific dryers on our list, it makes up for it with extreme heat precision (it measures and corrects its output temperature 20 times per second) and speed (it comes with three speed options and fans assure us it’s one of the fastest dryers on the market, even for thick hair). The downside? Dyson’s hair dryer models aren’t dual-voltage, so if you’re headed overseas, leave this guy at home.
Best for Curly Hair Travel Hair Dryer
T3 Featherweight Compact Folding Hair Dryer
It’s tough to find high-quality ionic technology in a compact package, but that’s just what this T3 dryer offers. Using their proprietary SoftAire technology, the dryer puts out negative ions that help to smooth the hair cuticle—taming frizz in even the most humid of climates while keeping your curl structure intact. This dual-voltage option comes with two heat and speed settings and a cool shot button to provide tons of versatility for different hair types and styling needs. At just under two pounds, it’s a touch heavier than some other travel dryers, but perfect curls are worth the extra poundage.
Best Travel Hair Dryer at Sephora
Sephora Collection Mini Blast Ionic Blow Dryer
For maximum power at minimum size, Sephora buyers turn to this dainty pink dryer. Complete with a diffuser and concentrator attachment, this dual-voltage option is almost comically small, but don’t let the size fool you. With a high and low setting, this dryer is said to really bring the airflow while also pumping out negative ions to fend off frizziness and tame seaside poof. The only downside, according to its dedicated fans, is that this much drying power can lead the nozzle to heat up quickly, making those attachments particularly clutch.
Best Cult-Following Travel Hair Dryer
Harry Josh Ultra Light Pro Dryer
While it’s not marketed as a travel dryer, this pistachio-green dryer has a major following among the jet set due to its weight, coming in at under a pound. It offers a motor speed of a whopping 94 mph with 12 different heat and speed settings and silencing technology that makes it surprisingly quiet to use too. It’s the latest iteration of the dryer that celebrity hairstylist Harry Josh made famous, and considering that Josh is known for using his creations on the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow, Tina Fey, and Gisele Bundchen, the accolades kind of speak for themselves. The only drawback? This impressive little package is single-voltage, so don’t plan on carrying it across the pond.
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