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New hair tools are dropping thick and fast, especially designs that use a concentrated airflow to dry and style hair, instead of blasts of extreme heat, which does more harm than good.

Dyson has recently launched the airstrait but it is the brand’s airwrap – which debuted in 2018 only to be modified in 2022 – that has continued to take centre stage in the Dyson family, as well as in the broader hair tool category.

The airwrap has garnered high praise due to its multifunctionality – the cult device can dry and style any hair type, without using extreme heat, therefore minimising the risk of hair damage and breakage, while still creating salon-worthy hair styles quickly. However, as the device comes with a hefty price tag of close to £500, we’ve been on the lookout for some purse-friendly alternatives.

Shark’s air styler and Revlon’s volumiser have proved popular options for people wanting to achieve similar results for less but we’ve tried and tested a variety of hair tools from multiple brands, across an array of price points, to find the best budget-friendly airwrap alternatives on the market.

How we tested the best Dyson airwrap alternatives

For this review, we trialled alternative hair tools to the Dyson airwrap by introducing them into our hair routine – every time hair-wash day came around, we tried drying and styling our mid-long, frizzy tresses with a different appliance, to see how each fared.

We trialled a selection of tools over the course of a month. We paid close attention to the various settings on each appliance, including different temperatures and speeds, as well as the numerous attachments in each set. We looked at how well the devices dried and styled our hair, how long that style held, and how easy it was to change between attachments, to assess which were the best alternatives to Dyson’s airwrap.

The best Dyson airwrap alternatives for 2024 are: