Hair Styling Tools

I was out shopping recently to see what the marketplace had to offer in the way of professional hairdryers to see just how many came with attachments.  First of all, most of the professional hairdryers that I am familiar with seem to be only sold in beauty supply stores and hair salons.  The web has far more to offer.  Secondly, the majority of hair dryers only come with concentrators and not diffusers.  So, the hunt was on on for finding diffusers that were sold separately.  This became a very difficult task so I gave up and came home to shop online.

What makes shopping for a diffuser for your hair dryer complicated, is not necessarily where you can find them, but what will fit on the hairdryer you already are using.  Many brands make diffusers for their line of dryers, but not all.  The other thing to take into consideration is what type of diffuser do you need?  Do you have curly hair, straight hair, wavy hair, and what is your goal?

There are basically, three types of diffusers available in the marketplace.  Two of the three are made from a very hard plastic and are typically found as cone shaped.  These usually can be found in a couple of different sizes (small or large) and with prongs or fingers or without.  The third type of diffuser is the Hot Sock, which is made of soft, flexible lightweight foam that adds volume to your hair. Its unique design gives you better overall diffusion.  It literally is so small and weighs only ounces that you can take it anywhere with you.  

So, which diffuser is right for you?  No matter what type hair you have, if you are looking to increase the volume of your hair and don’t really need to style the hair , the prong-type diffuser will work best.  The reason is simple.  While you are blow drying your hair, the diffuser is restricting the bolt of air to a milder force of air, that would otherwise be blowing out an extreme force of air.  At the same time, the fingers of the diffuser are lifting your hair from your head to create volume and maintain whatever type hair you already have.  If your hair is curly, it stays curly.  If your hair is wavy, it stays wavy.   This gentler force of air and diffusion of heat results in less damage to the hair and definitely less frizz.

The second type of diffuser mentioned above is one that does not have prongs.   This type diffuser looks like small round speakers.  Diffusers without fingers generally do the same job as the ones that do have fingers, however, in my opinion typically takes a person a little more time to dry their hair.  Of course it also depends on the size of the diffuser that you are using as a larger model will dry more hair at one time than the smaller.  If you are not necessarily looking for extra volume but still want to reduce the air flow and heat concentration, then this is the one to buy.  The Hot Sock does a similar job but the difference is that this diffuser fits on any size blow dryer, is easier to travel with, and focuses on a smaller section of hair at a time. 

Now, to get to the point of finding a diffuser that fits.  There are many universal diffusers to choose from.  If the nozzle of your blow dryer is perfectly round, the universal diffusers will generally fit.  However, many of the newer brand hairdryers are coming out with elliptical shaped nozzles and some other shapes.  The universal diffuser will not fit these and you will have to contact the manufacturer of your hairdryer to see if they sell one that fits.

One of the more common diffusers sold in the marketplace that a shopper can pretty much rely upon to fit their hairdryer if the nozzle is round shaped is the Helen of Troy Euro diffuser.  The reason this is so popular is that it comes with 4 different size adapters to fit different size round nozzles.

Whatever hair type you have, or hair dryer you have, if you are looking for yet another way to protect the health of your hair, then the diffuser is for you.