Meet Dyson’s $94 million hair dryer that promises a quieter, less damaging experience

DYSON has unveiled a hi-tech hair dryer that it promises won’t damage your hair, which the company has invested $94 million in total to produce.

‘Supersonic’ ... Dyson's first hair dryer, dubbed Supersonic, promises to be quieter, more powerful, and less damaging than its competitors, but it could cost a lot when it is released in Australia.

MASTERS of appliance reinvention Dyson have turned their attention to personal styling, revealing a $94 million hair dryer four years in the making.

The Dyson Supersonic is a lightweight, strangely shaped device with a purple barrel, no visible blades and, the company promised, a “high velocity” air jet and noise “beyond the audible range for humans”.

But the expensive research project could blast a hole in consumers’ wallets, with British prices indicating it could cost $570 when it arrives in Australia.

The company’s founder, Sir James Dyson, unveiled the appliance at an event in Tokyo today.

The Dyson Supersonic was the result of a four-year project involving 103 engineers, 600 prototypes, more than 100 patents and, bizarrely, more than 1625km of human hair.

Mr Dyson said the company set out to address problems with existing hair dryers, and built a state-of-the-art Hair Laboratory in the process.

Hot headed no more? ... Dyson’s Supersonic hair dryer will come with magnetic accessories.

“Hair dryers can be heavy, inefficient, and make a racket,” he said.

“By looking at them further, we realised that they can also cause extreme damage to hair.

“I challenged Dyson engineers to really understand the science of hair and develop our version of a hair dryer, which we think solves these problems.”

The Supersonic hair dryer uses the same Air Multiplier technology as in Dyson’s bladeless fans, which it says draws in more than three times as much air as standard hair dryers.

It also uses a motor impeller with 13 blades to change the sound frequency of the hair dryer to one the company claims cannot be heard by humans, and a glass beat thermistor to measure the temperature 20 times each second which, with a computer chip, is used to control its heating element and prevent hair damage.

But Dyson’s latest creation is not likely to be cheap when it arrives in Australia at a date yet to be confirmed.

The company will sell the device for £299 in Britain, or the equivalent of $A571.