Does the Revlon hair dryer brush with 100,000+ reviews work on natural hair?

Blow dryer brushes are all the rage right now, boasting the ability to cut your drying time in half and give you salon-like results. Typically, the advertisements of these tools depict amazing results on fine, mostly straight hair, so as someone with thick and curly hair strands, I didn’t expect to achieve the silky smooth results I’d get in a hair stylist's chair. Instead, my goal was to stretch my hair to achieve a more elongated curly hair style.

For some background, I’ve used a Lumcrissy blow dryer brush before that I purchased on Amazon and I was impressed that it reduced my style time by half and gave me the softest results I'd experienced! I was even able to get my roots super smooth as well, which I struggle to acheive with a typical blow dryer. With that previous experience in mind, I could not wait to put this highly rated—and Reviewed recommended—Revlon One-Step Hair Dryer and Volumizer to the test on my hair type.

How did I prepare my natural hair for the Revlon One-Step?

I’ve been “natural” for over five years now, which means I wear my hair naturally how it grows out my scalp without chemical treatments or the regular use of hot tools. Instead of using heat or straightening tools on my curls, I style my bust-length hair in braid outs or in big curls using hair rollers. I blow-dry my hair about three or four times a year to either trim the ends or stretch out my curls to reduce shrinkage and get a more full and elongated hair style. My curls are very healthy, shiny, and moisturized, and according to the curl type chart, I would say that my curl pattern is mostly 3c with some 4a spirals at the crown of my head. My hair is also low porosity, which means that my hair takes a longer time to absorb moisture. To combat that and prep my hair for using the Revlon One-Step, I washed my hair with Kinky Curly’s Come Clean Shampoo to ensure I had a clean and moisturized base.

On the rare occasion that I blow-dry my hair at home, my arms suffer for the entire 40 to 60 minutes it takes to run the brush and blow dryer through my hair. I had hope that the Revlon combo tool would shorten that time, but from those previous experiences, I learned that, no matter how I’m styling my hair, it is so much easier to work in sections. I spilt my hair into four quadrants and applied the Garnier Fructis Smooth Blow Dry and a spritz of Garnier Fructis Flat Iron Perfector to each one. This combo reduces frizz and protects my hair from heat damage for better blow-dry results. I then took the first section of my hair, detangled it with a brush, and spilt it in half, as Revlon recommends working with smaller and more “manageable” sections.

What's it like to use the Revlon One-Step on natural hair?

Upon taking the Revlon One-Step out of the box, I was a little intimidated by the size of the blow dryer. The round brush is rather large, as is the base, and it doesn’t have any finger grooves around the base to allow for an easier grip while styling. I was also a little hesitant about the bristles on the brush, as finer brush bristles tend to snag and pull out thick, tightly coiled hair like mine.

I brushed my hair one more time to ensure there weren’t any tangles and began to run the blow dryer brush from mid-shaft through the end of my hair. I typically use this method when blow drying to avoid any tangles or knots that can potentially occur from pulling the blow dryer brush from root to end. The ends of my hair did get slightly snarled in the brush, but that was easily fixed by focusing the blow dryer on my ends to dry and smooth them out first.

After the first pass through my hair, I realized there was a technique to using this tool and that it’s easier to maneuver using both hands to hold the blow dryer at its base, almost like a baseball bat. The Revlon One-Step is pretty heavy for a blow dryer at 1.8 pounds (that’s heavier than every traditional hair dryer we tested) and I recommend keeping both hands in place to pull the brush away from your head in a semi-circular motion, curling the hair under or over depending on your preference, just as you would a regular round brush, for best results.

After about three or four full-length passes through the first section, my curly spirals were gone and my hair was stretched, shiny, and blown out! After the first section was blown out, I had picked up a rhythm, gotten used to holding the tool in my hands, and I found it easier to finish blow-drying the rest of my hair with the new technique.

My only concern is this may be a bit much for those who are afraid of heat damaging their curly hair by having to pass the blow dryer through multiple times.

Is the Revlon One-Step worth it for natural hair?

As expected, my hair was not sleek, straight, or “salon finished” in the way that the advertisements suggested finer hair would be. But I did get a soft, fluffy blow out on par with how my hair usually turns out with a regular blow dryer and round brush combination. My roots were not as smooth as I like when blow drying my hair and I believe this was because of how large the blow dryer brush is; I wasn’t able to get close to my roots to straighten them out so I instead went over the area with the smaller blow dryer brush I got on Amazon. After going in with the smaller blow dryer brush, my hair was ready for the roller set I wanted to use to complete the hair style.

For my hair type, I would need to use a flat iron as well to get super-sleek, salon-finished results. Still, my hair was super soft and did not feel or smell burnt from using the blow dryer brush, and it gave me close to the same results I get from using a round brush and traditional blow dryer in roughly 35-40 minutes. By using this tool I was able to shave down my usual drying time by about 10 minutes, but I do feel like I spent quite a bit of time trying to adjust to the weight of the tool and figuring out the best way to hold it.

While the Revlon One-Step got the job done of stretching my 3c hair into a soft blowout, I admittedly like my smaller and more lightweight blow dryer brush from Amazon. The Revlon One-Step is a good contender in the blow dryer brush line up and is great for stretching natural hair without damaging it, and if the tool was a bit smaller, it’d be absolutely perfect. If you’re a natural and you’re thinking about giving the Revlon One-Step Hair Dryer and Volumizer a try, I say grab your heat protectant and go for it!

Get the Revlon One-Step Hair Dryer and Volumizer on Amazon for $41.99