I Couldn’t Buy Myself the Dyson Airwrap. So I Asked for It.

Five years of daily use later, a review from the woman who has everything, is impossible to shop for, and finally just said what she wanted.

The honest part first: as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, including the links in this post. I bought nothing because of that. My Airwrap was a Christmas present five years ago, and my Airstrait came later, with my own money, because the first one earned it.

The video, and the pause

The first time I saw the video for the Dyson Airwrap, I was simply agog with curiosity. Hair wrapping itself around a barrel, on purpose, using air. I wanted to know everything.

Then I saw the price tag. And my powers of rationalization are incredible, truly, I have talked myself into far sillier purchases. But this one gave me pause. I could not get myself over the line.

Here is the thing about me, and maybe about you. My kids and my husband would tell you I am one of those women who has everything. I am very difficult to purchase for. Every year they ask what I want and every year I say oh, nothing, and every year everyone involved suffers for it.

So that Christmas, when they asked, I did something radical. I told them.

I couldn’t rationalize buying it for myself. But I could ask for it for Christmas. If you are the hard-to-shop-for woman in your family, I am giving you permission to do the same.

Five years later

I have got to tell you, this was an amazing purchase for me.

It is gentle on my hair. It dries my hair faster than anything I owned before it. The finished product is absolutely gorgeous, and I do not use that word loosely about my own hair. And the mornings. I have regained so much time in the morning that the machine has quietly paid me back in the one currency I actually care about at this point in my life.

At this point I have had mine for at least five years. It gets constant, everyday use. Not special-occasion use. Every day. And it still works as well as the day it came out of the box.

They say you get what you pay for. Usually people say that through gritted teeth. In this case I just mean it.

What five years of daily use actually costs

Mine is the original model. The one Dyson sells today is the Airwrap i.d., which is $519 on Amazon as I write this. That is a lot of money for a hair tool and I am not going to pretend otherwise.

But I can do arithmetic the review sites cannot, because they test these for two weeks and I have used one for five years. Call it $100 a year so far, used every single day, still going. And I say this with love for my former self: there has been quite the graveyard of hair tools in this house. The graveyard cost more than this machine has, and it styled my hair worse the whole time it was alive.

If the number still makes you wince, good. It should. That is exactly why it belongs on a Christmas list instead of in your own cart. Your family wants to get you something you will use every day for five years. This is what that looks like.

Then they made the Airstrait, and I fell again

My hair is pretty curly most days, and I do like to straighten it. Last year Dyson came out with the Airstrait, which straightens wet hair with air instead of hot plates.

Remember my incredible powers of rationalization, the ones that failed me at the Airwrap? This time they worked beautifully. No Christmas list required. I rationalized the Airstrait all by myself, and it was easy, because the Airwrap had spent five years building my case.

Another amazing find. My hair is styled straight so much faster and with less damage. Every bit worth every penny. I love it.

If you are choosing between them: the Airwrap is the do-everything tool, curls and waves and smoothing and drying. The Airstrait does one job, wet to dry and straight, and does it beautifully. I use both, but I am aware that is not advice, it is a confession.

Who should not buy this

Honesty section. If you wash your hair, let it air dry and go, a $519 machine will not make you into a different woman, and the $40 dryer you own is not holding you back. This is a tool for someone who already styles her hair most days and is paying for it in time, heat damage, or both.

I have seen the knockoffs too, the Shark and whatnot. I do not think I would buy them. Maybe they are perfectly fine, I honestly could not tell you. But this is the one category where I already know what five years of the real thing does, and I am not curious enough to gamble a year of mornings finding out.

Is it ever actually on sale?

Almost never, and that is worth knowing before you put it on a list. Dyson does not do coupons and does not do random Tuesday markdowns. The one real window is Black Friday week, when the discount has historically been in the range of $100 to $150. So my practical advice for a Christmas ask: name it in November, and whoever loves you should buy it Black Friday week, not December 23rd.

I am recording the price of both machines every single day between now and Christmas, so this table is not a guess. It is what I have actually seen.

If those numbers have not moved by the time you read this, waiting for a mystery sale is costing you mornings for nothing. If they have dropped, that is your moment, and you are welcome.

The short version

Five years, daily use, works like new, gave me my mornings back, and led me to buy its sibling at full price with my own money. That is the whole review. Everything else on this page is just me showing my work.

And tell your family what you want this year. You are not being greedy. You are being easy to love.