The state of my 'hair appliance' draw is truly horrific. With a huge main of unruly, frizzy, thick hair to tame, I've come to rely on a mountain of tools and products that co-exist in a tangle of cords and split ends.
I've been using GHD straighteners since the days of hot pink side fringes (my emo girlies will remember), so when they said they were releasing a styler that both dried and straightened, it sounded too good to be true.
I am not exaggerating when I say it takes approximately a full hour to dry my hair with a blow dryer, and it remains the most weekly cardio I do. Once I've finally got it dry, I'm sweaty and bored. Plus, I haven't even started on the styling part yet.
The GHD Duet Style promised to change all that. Its 2-in-1 hot air stylers that dries and styles simultaneously, all while apparently causing no damage. This is the sort of technology millennials like me could only dream of, having been traumatised by the hissing sound of the 'wet-to-dry' straighteners that used to fry our hair in the early 2000s.
On first impressions, the Duet Style looks similar to the GHD Max wide plate straightener, but it sounds very different. When it powers up it sounds a bit like an Elon Musk spaceship taking off, but a really quiet one. So quiet, in fact, that I can still binge-watch reality TV while drying my hair, which is an ABSOLUTE GAME-CHANGER.
Watch some of The Edge team try out the GHD Duet Style below:
The four low-temperature styling plates work alongside a concentrated airflow to get the hair dry, and it's pretty clever stuff. You're meant to hold the tool at your roots for about three seconds before passing it over a section of hair about three times, which was all I needed to get my hair bone dry. As you'll see in the video above, I was shooketh.
This thing tackled baby hairs, it got the stubborn curls that sit at the nape of my neck, and it didn't pull on my coarse hair. The wide plates can handle a fair bit of hair at once, but the unit is pretty light and didn't hurt my arms.
IMO, you could totally leave the house with your hair done on just the drying setting, especially if you were just taming it to throw it up in a ponytail or if you were in a rush.
The thing that really elevates this tool, however, is the 'shine shot', which turns the drying function off and pumps up the heat of the plates to that optimal 185°C GHD styling temperature we all know and love.
This part of the process gives you that no-frizz, sleek finish you'd get from normal straighteners, but you haven't had to swap tools or wait for a new appliance to heat up. Magic.
There are a couple of less-than-ideal aspects to the GHD styler, and one of them is the price point. It'll set you back about $645, which is not exactly pocket change. It's a lot less than other tools on the market (looking at you, Dyson), but it's still a huge investment.
Secondly, if you're a tight curl girl, this isn't quiiiite going to give you what you need. The wide plates mean that you can achieve movement and lose curls or waves, but you're not going to get those spiral curls that you can brush out and still maintain hella volume.
Despite those little downsides, I am firmly of the opinion that this thing is heaven-sent. It's massively cut down the time of my post-shower hair routine and I love that it has replaced both my blow dryer and straightener. I'll definitely be keeping a curler around for the times I want to switch up my styles, but I won't be looking back.
Check out the videos above to see me try the GHD Duet Style for the first time and watch some of the Edge whānau give it a go, too.
GHD provided Monika with the Duet Style for the purposes of this review.
