The design
I once heard someone say of high school proms, “If you’ve been to one, you’ve been to them all,” and that’s how I would generally describe blow-dryer brushes. That was my initial reaction to the Airsmooth too. It’s lightweight and easy to hold, but the only obvious difference between it and competitors is the teardrop-shaped brush head. Or so I thought. As I used it, another key difference quickly became apparent: the bristles. Slim and hyper-flexible, they lack the ball-tipped ends found on most brushes and combs.
Says Nair, as the team began researching hot brushes already on the market, two user complaints consistently emerged, particularly among those with finer, thinner hair and coily hair types: breakage and discomfort. Digging deeper, they discovered that those ball-tipped bristles were a major culprit. The bristles tend to catch knots and tear them, as opposed to working through them.
Despite shared concerns, however, these hair types have some drastically different needs. “If you design something very high in tension that gives you a lot of control, the curly/coily community loves it. The minute you do that, though, users [with] finer hair—like Asian hair or European hair—are like, ‘It’s painful for me, I need this to be a bit more flexible,’” says Nair. “So a lot of work went into the development of the bristles and understanding how the product can be robust in terms of taking very high tension, but also being very comfortable on the scalp.”
In response to all the above, the Airsmooth features two distinct types of bristles: AntiSnag (also found on the Anti-Snag Loop Brush attachment for the Airwrap) and PivotFlex. The AntiSnag bristles, with their looped structure, are designed “to flex and release knots around the bristles,” Nair explains, as opposed to catching and breaking them. The Eiffel Tower-shaped PivotFlex bristles are thinner and more flexible (bending up to 90 degrees), “adapt[ing] to the type of hair you have to release tangles without actually putting a lot of force on your hair to release them,” she continues. These bristles also feature an open-base design, helping to diffuse airflow and, by extension, minimize frizz.
These high-tech bristles are situated around that aforementioned teardrop-shaped brush. The narrower edge is designed to improve access to the roots, while the flat sides are for styling and straightening.
Why isn’t it an Airwrap attachment?
The Airsmooth is kind of like an eye shadow single compared to the Airwrap’s nine-pan palette: It’s designed to be a stand-alone product that’s more convenient, cheaper, and travel-friendly, albeit less versatile. The goal, says Nair, was to bring “wet-to-dry styling capability to a hot brush that people can take with them on the go.”
I wouldn’t say the Airsmooth is substantially lighter than the Airwrap (or, at $250, particularly cheap), but one group of people might find this new device especially appealing: frequent international travelers. As “the flagship product [for] wet-to-dry styling,” according to Nair, “I like to call [the Airwrap] a ‘salon in a box.’” The Airwrap requires a lot of power, and because of that, each one has a voltage specific to the region where it was purchased, meaning that your North American Airwrap won’t work in your Italian hotel room. By comparison, the much less powerful Airsmooth works anywhere in the world, provided you have an adapter for the plug.
