Dyson launches Airstrait, game-changing new hair straightener
James Dyson has launched the tech firm’s latest gadget, a new product it claims “no one has done before”. But, it won’t be cheap.
It won’t clean your carpet or dry your hands but tech firm Dyson reckons its new product is a game changer – and it’s down to one unique feature.
So confident is Dyson founder Sir James Dyson that he said the gizmo at the heart of the new product is “perfect”.
At a swanky event in the Flatiron district of Manhattan on Thursday evening the British entrepreneur and inventor launched the Dyson Airstrait.
It’s a hair straightener – but not as the world knows it.
Sure, they look swish, in bronze and midnight blue. But the Airstrait bravely dispenses with the key feature thought fundamental in straighteners: two hotplates that sandwich and style the hair strands.
Unique feature
Dyson reckons it’s found a hotplate replacement that can style hair just as well. Naturally, this being the company that brought us vacuums, hair dryers and hand dryers, that replacement is – air. Lots of it, pumped super-fast and very precisely targeted.
“Before we even started designing this product we spent a long time understanding the science of hair damage, how to keep hair shiny and glossy and how to keep it strong,” Mr Dyson told the New York crowd.
The science told them the key to get a new look for your locks was to break the hydrogen bonds in the hair and reset them.
There are two ways to achieve this: through heat or through moisture.
But too much heat can create frizz, flyaway and dull hair.
The Airstrait is designed primarily to direct high powered jets on moisture laden hair to break those bonds and, in the process, tame curls, coils and waves.
“You’re straightening and drying at the same time without using any hotplates,” said Mr Dyson.
“And the temperature of the air is very closely controlled so you’re not damaging the hair or wasting any heat.”
Won’t be cheap
Pricing hasn’t yet been released for the Airstrait but it won’t come cheap. Dyson’s Corrale, a cordless hair straightener, retails for $699 and the Airstrait is likely to be a step above that.
Especially as Dyson described the new product as one “no one has done before”.
Mr Dyson gallantly demonstrated the Airstrait on his own hair. But it was probably for the best some people with abundant hair that needed to be straightened were brought onto demonstrate the product too.
Perfect
The inventor couldn’t resist talking about all the tech inside the hair straightener, including the tiny motor enclosed in the handle that does the hard yards by sucking air into the tongs and then shooting it out through the two arms.
“We make about 20 million of these motors a year and there isn’t a person anywhere near it. It’s all done on fully automated manufacturing machines,” he said glowingly.
“The advantage of that is every motor is perfect and exactly the same”.
The Airstrait does have a dry hair function as well – if you do want the extra heat. Although the company insisted its still expertly temperature controlled.
It also switches itself off if left idle as a safety measure
‘Love it’
Dyson senior design engineer Lowchen Nyeow was a fan. She had the straight hair to prove it.
“We’ve worked with 6000 engineers and scientists across seven research and development facilities,” she said.
“I’ve tested it out myself many times and I love it.”
The Airstrait is an elegant piece of kit but it looks and feels familiar.
That can’t be said of some of Dyson’s other recent launches. The Dyson Zone air purifying head phones has raised eyebrows for its Mad Max esque bold look with a plastic visor that covers the mouth.
Dyson reckons its filters on the Zone suck out 99 per cent of particles down to 0.1 microns which is smaller than exhaust fumes.
The Airstrait is part of an $885 million investment that the British founded – but now Singapore based – firm is making in 20 new beauty products that will launch over the next four years.
Talking to news.com.au, Mr Dyson said hair products were crucial to its future.
“We have already invested well over £100 million ($A176 million) into hair laboratories and our latest £500 million ($A885 million) investment will create new lab spaces to sharpen our understanding of all global hair types and damage, which helps to inform the beauty technology we are developing.”