We’ve been reviewing tech, gadgets, and beauty appliances for more than a decade and we’ve seen a lot of hair dryers come and go. In an increasingly saturated market, many new entries turn to gimmicks in a bid to make them stand out and, on first impression, we assumed this was the case the mdlondon BLOW.
We were wrong.
Its T-shaped design, thin barrel, and matte finish stand out in a sea of chunky, black, and white models. Its unusual shape makes the dryer well-balanced and the buttons are easy to reach and well-positioned to allow you to change settings mid-style with minimum effort.
It’s not the fastest dryer we’ve used, nor does it have the highest motor – although the latter point is slightly moot because it’s not the power, it’s what the dryer does with it that counts.
When rough drying our hair, the results were a little disappointing but as soon as you attach the concentrator nozzle and spend the time blow drying your hair properly, the full potential of this dryer becomes clear.
Not only does it create smooth styles that leave your hair full of shine, it somehow manages to create volume, and bounce that we rarely see with regular hair dryers on our fine and thin hair.
It’s not cheap, and its design may not be to everyone’s tastes but we’d pay for the shine and finish it creates on its own. Even if it does take a little effort.
In short, the time and cost investment involved with the mdlondon BLOW is worth it.
| mdlondon | £195 |
| Harvey Nichols | £195 |
| Sephora | £195 |
In our mdlondon BLOW hair dryer review, we put the debut styler from celebrity hair stylist Michael Douglas to the test to see if it’s worth the money
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Award-winning celebrity hair stylist, Michael Douglas has been in the business for decades and has used almost every hair dryer going on the likes of Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, Yasmin Le Bon, and Davina McCall.
Fed up with not ever quite getting the features he needed, he decided to create his own; a hair dryer that met his needs, could be easily used at home, and which he would feel happy recommending to clients, and fans.
Claiming that traditional dryers are “too heavy, too noisy, too expensive, too bulky” and “very old-fashioned looking,” the BLOW hair dryer was born to be different.
It’s a lightweight, quiet, T-shaped dryer that comes in two muted, but classic colours and ships with a number of features that make it stand out from the crowd.
Yet is all this really worth the £195 price tag? Find out in our mdlondon BLOW hair dryer review.
mamabella | mamabella What?: The BLOW hairdryer was the first styling tool from award-winning, A-list hair stylist Michael Douglas. It was recently joined by the mdlondon STRAIT hair straightener.
Price: The BLOW hair dryer costs £195 and is available from mdlondon, or Harvey Nichols in the UK and ROI in either blue or green.
Attachments: It ships with two magnetic nozzles – a smaller, shorter one designed for styling fringes, and short hair as well as a larger nozzle for longer hair, and creating blow-drys. You can then buy a diffuser attachment for curly hairstyles for £25.
Settings: The BLOW hair dryer has three temperature settings and three heat settings. Plus a cool shot button.
Specifications: The hair dryer has a 1600W brushless motor that creates just 76db of noise, making it one of the quietest dryers we’ve tested. The barrel width and handle length measure 7 inches, which increases to 9.5 inches when you attach the nozzles. The handle then has a circumference of 4.25 inches.
Competitors: The closest like-for-like hair dryer in terms of design, price and features is the £180 Beauty Works Aeris. It’s slightly cheaper than Cloud Nine’s £199 Airshot Pro, and is slightly more expensive than the £179 GHD Helios.
Where to buy: mdlondon | Harvey Nichols | Sephora
mamabella | mamabella The mdlondon BLOW is unlike the vast majority of hair dryers on the market when it comes to design. Instead of having a long, chunky barrel and short handle, the BLOW looks like the letter T. Its handle is situated more central on the barrel than other dryers, and its barrel is longer and thinner than most. The handle is then large enough for bigger hands, but isn’t too large for smaller palms.
What appeared, at first glance to just be a gimmick, this T-shaped design makes the BLOW dryer well-balanced, easy to move around your hair and easy to store or pack for holidays.
The thin barrel also helps you get closer to the root than with larger dryers, which is great for adding volume but also perfect for curly hair types whose waves often start really close to the scalp and can be difficult to dry straight.
Elsewhere, the BLOW weighs just 360g without the cable, making it one of the lightest, high-power dryers on the market. To put this into perspective, it’s almost half the weight of the GHD Helios, and much lighter than the 560g Dyson Supersonic.
mamabella | mamabella Underneath the T-shaped barrel on the handle is the cool-shot button alongside three heat and two airflow buttons that sit flush with the design of the handle. The power button is then situated on the side.
Not only does this positioning of the power button prevent you from accidentally turning the dryer on and off by accident, but the flush buttons mean you can easily grip the handle without selecting a new setting without realising.
Each of the BLOW’s attachments connects to the front of the barrel via magnets that are strong enough to hold the nozzles in place while styling, but not so strong that you can’t easily swap them in and out.
mamabella | mamabella Our go-to hair dryer is the Revlon One-Step Plus, it sets the benchmark in terms of ease of use, speed, and performance. It can take our hair from wet to dry and styled in around three minutes.
By comparison, the mdlondon BLOW took a little over five minutes when rough drying our hair, and six and a half minutes when styling our hair with a large round brush. Almost double the time with more effort.
However, the Revlon Plus is an anomaly and if we compare the BLOW with the best hair dryers, rather than hot brushes, its speed is almost on par with the Dyson Supersonic, despite being considerably cheaper; and the GHD Helios.
It’s then three times faster than the Panasonic EH-NA65. All of our hair drying tests using the mdlondon BLOW were done using the mid-range heat setting.
mamabella | mamabella In terms of performance, our hair looked frizzier than normal when rough drying it with the BLOW, which was surprising given the fact it makes a point of highlighting its ionic technology. Ionic technology is designed to reduce frizz.
Yet when we put the time and effort into styling our hair properly, using the concentrator nozzle and a large brush, the finish was next-level. It was shiny, smooth, and had volume and bounce, which is rare for our thin, fine hair. This made the extra effort more than worth it.
Elsewhere, the attachments don’t get too hot during use making it easy to swap them in and out when needed, even mid-style, and the BLOW hair dryer is quiet, registering just 72db for noise on its highest setting. This is quiet enough for us to be able to have a conversation or hear our youngest shouting for snacks.
mamabella | mamabella We’ve been reviewing tech, gadgets, and beauty appliances for more than a decade and we’ve seen a lot of hair dryers come and go. In an increasingly saturated market, many new entries turn to gimmicks in a bid to make them stand out and, on first impression, we assumed this was the case the mdlondon BLOW.
We were wrong.
Its T-shaped design, thin barrel, and matte finish stand out in a sea of chunky, black, and white models. Its unusual shape makes the dryer well-balanced and the buttons are easy to reach and well-positioned to allow you to change settings mid-style with minimum effort.
It’s not the fastest dryer we’ve used, nor does it have the highest motor – although the latter point is slightly moot because it’s not the power, it’s what the dryer does with it that counts.
When rough drying our hair, the results were a little disappointing but as soon as you attach the concentrator nozzle and spend the time blow drying your hair properly, the full potential of this dryer becomes clear.
Not only does it create smooth styles that leave your hair full of shine, it somehow manages to create volume, and bounce that we rarely see with regular hair dryers on our fine and thin hair.
It’s not cheap, and its design may not be to everyone’s tastes but we’d pay for the shine and finish it creates on its own. Even if it does take a little effort.
In short, the time and cost investment involved with the mdlondon BLOW is worth it.
Victoria is founder and editor-in-chief of mamabella, freelance journalist and Mum. She has a passion for empowering people to feel beautiful whatever their age, size, skin type and budget
