As long as women have styled their hair, they have looked for ways to make it dry faster, or to aid in styling it. As electricity became widely available, salons began installing hair dryers. This in turn led to home hair dryers of the bonnet or hood variety, which then evolved to the hand-held hair dryer.

Hair dryers blow out warm air to dry hair faster and aid in styling it. Countless movies, television shows and commercials have featured a row of women in a salon, hair in curlers, sitting under hair dryers and reading magazines. When the hair came out of the curlers, it required only combing to style.

Hair dryers serve a convenience purpose nowadays, as much as a stylish one. Many women who shower in the morning find hair dryers a must if they are to go to work with neatly styled hair. And technology is always looking for a better method of drying the hair without damaging it.

For years, hand-held hair dryers had metal coils inside that heated to produce warm or hot air. The disadvantage of this was that the air might become too hot, damaging the hair, and metal coils have a tendency to burn out or develop shorts. Also, the concept of merely having warm air blowing on the air was just too basic.

One of the recent innovations in hair dryers is the ionic hair dryer. Ionic hair dryers supposedly shrink the water droplets in hair, making the hair dry faster, and leaving it sleek and shiny. Independent reviews have confirmed ionic hair dryers do live up to at least some of their reputation as a better mousetrap.

Another innovation in hair dryers is the ceramic heating unit. Ceramic is a superconductor and has been used in heating and manufacturing applications for some time. It has some distinct advantages over a metal heating unit. A ceramic unit heats evenly and does not get too hot. It also does not spark or short out. Many ceramic unit hair dryers are also ionic: a double benefit.

Tourmaline hair dryers make up the very newest in the styling class. These hair dryers have industrial grade tourmaline gemstones in their coils, which supposedly produce more negative ions, drying hair even faster and leaving it even sleeker than other ionic hair dryers. A buyer will pay the price for this innovation, though. They run up to $300 US Dollars (USD).

Many hair dryers also have attachments, such as nozzles or volumizer “fingers” that supposedly give better heat control or leave hair “bigger.” These also add to the cost of a hair dryer.

Hair dryers run the gamut in price. They can be purchased for $15-300 USD, depending on their features and whether they are professional-grade dryers or not. The wattage of the motor is also a consideration while shopping. A person with fine, thin or damaged hair will find a hair dryer with 1200-1400 watts of power to be plenty. Someone with thick, wavy or curly hair will probably want to look for a dryer with 1600-1800 watts. Smaller, travel-size hair dryers are also available, and usually cost between $20-50 USD.

Hair dryers are such a ubiquitous appliance, they can be purchased anywhere from beauty supply shops to the dollar stores. Few bathrooms are without one.