There’s no denying that the GHD Duet Style is pricey. You could buy the GHD Air (£119), GHD Platinum Plus (£229), and even the GHD heat protectant (£18.95) for less money, and they offer very similar use cases in terms of being able to dry and straighten the hair.
It takes longer to go from start to finish with the Duet Style than when we blow dry and straighten our hair, and it offers far less versatility.
Despite our hair feeling softer when using the Duet Style, and the style lasting longer, we don’t think our hair looks as healthy as it does when we use our go-to dryer, the Revlon Plus.
Plus the sizzling and steam that comes off our hair when using the Duet Style – as you may be able to hear/see in our TikTok video – doesn’t fill us with confidence that it’s protecting our hair as much as it could.
We imagine if you love wearing your hair straight, or your hair is naturally thick and hard to manage with a regular hair dryer, then we can see where the Duet Style could bring benefits.
If you want to give up your hot-plate straighteners, the Duet Style does offer the best of both worlds in terms of straight styles with less extreme heat. With the added benefit of plates as and when you need them.
All things considered, though, there’s little going in GHD’s favour.
That’s not necessarily a fault of GHD per se. It’s more a fault of the overall wet-to-dry styling trend generally but at this price point, we can’t, in good faith, recommend it. Unless you have money to spare and don’t mind taking a gamble to see if it better suits your hair type and style.
| GHD | £379 |
| Lookfantastic | £379 |
| Cult Beauty | £379 |
In our GHD Duet Style review, we see if the new wet-to-dry GHD hair straightener is worth your time, money and effort
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GHD Duet Style review: Design and ease-of-use
GHD Duet Style review: Before and after
We’ve always been told to never straighten hair when it’s wet. Wet hair is incredibly fragile and applying any heat to it can cause the bonds to break down and your hair to become brittle.
However, with the launch of its new hot air styler, GHD has found a way for you to do just that – all without causing damage (apparently).
Called the GHD Duet Style, the 2-in-1 tool uses what the brand calls “groundbreaking Air-fusion technology” to channel the airflow through a drying chamber to remove moisture from the hair.
There are then four low-temperature styling plates that straighten and smooth the finished look.
In our GHD Duet Style review below, we explain more about the new hair straightener and reveal if it works as well as promised on our fine wavy hair.
You can also read how the Duet Style compares to the Dyson Airstrait in our GHD Duet Style vs Dyson Airstrait head-to-head.
Click the image below to see a larger version of our “which GHD hair straightener is best” chart in a new tab
mamabella | mamabella This chart shows the price, features and differences of different GHD stylers to help you determine which GHD hair straightener is best for you, your hair type and budget
The GHD Duet Style is the latest styler in the wider GHD hair tools range, released in February 2023. Features-wise, it’s unlike anything the brand has released before. Design-wise, it resembles the GHD Max, price-wise it’s closest to the cordless GHD Unplugged.
Although the Duet Style uses hot air, it’s closer in design, use and finish than the hair dryers so we’re including it in the hair straightener range.
Below we detail how the GHD Duet Style fits into the wider GHD hair straightener range and the wider styler market.
mamabella | mamabella What is the GHD Duet Style? The GHD is a 2-in-1 styling tool that uses hot air, via what the brand calls “groundbreaking Air-fusion technology” to remove moisture from the hair as it’s pulled through the chamber. There are then four low-temperature styling plates to straighten and smooth the finished look and add shine. GHD claims that during tests, there was no thermal hair damage detected after four passes of the Duet Style over the hair in wet-to-style mode, compared to hair that had been dried naturally.
GHD Duet Style price: £379
GHD Duet Style colours: Black, and white
Where to buy GHD Duet Style: GHD | Lookfantastic | Cult Beauty | Amazon
mamabella | mamabella To switch the GHD Duet Style on, you slide up the button on the side (pictured). A white ring of light around the button, as well as a beep, will let you know that it’s switched on and the motor will start running
The GHD Duet Style offers two modes:
To switch the GHD Duet Style on, you slide up the button on the side. A white ring of light around the button, as well as a beep, will let you know that it’s switched on and the motor will start running.
This motor sound gradually gets louder – it sounds like a tiny plane taking off! – and the white light will flash and you’ll hear another beep when the styler is ready to use.
From here you need to:
To use the Shine Shot mode:
mamabella | mamabella The GHD Duet Style measures 42.4cm in length and is 32.5cm wide. The individual plates are 1.7cm wide each
From a distance, the GHD Duet Style looks like a large pair of straighteners; not too dissimilar to the look and design of the GHD Max. It measures 42.4cm in length and is 32.5cm wide. The individual plates are 1.7cm wide each.
WHICH HAIR PROTECTANT TO USE?
It’s vital that you use a heat protector when using the GHD Duet Style.
GHD suggests using its own range of heat protectors, in particular its new GHD Sleek Talker oil that is said to create a thermal barrier on the hair while adding shine.
We also like the Olaplex No.7 Bonding Oil, as well as the Cantu Thermal Shield Heat Protectant. Cantu products are designed with natural and afro hair in mind.
These hair types are notoriously dry and need extra nourishment, making any Cantu product great at providing protection.
We’ve additionally listed a range of other options in our best heat protectant spray guide.
This makes it a bulky piece of kit and not the easiest of stylers to move around the head.
We especially struggle when trying to dry and straighten the hair at the back of our head, or when trying to get the styler close to the roots.
The plus side is that it means the Duet Style can dry relatively large sections of hair at any one time.
The flow of air that comes out of both the inner, and outer drying vents doesn’t feel very powerful but they work surprisingly well, considering. This also means they don’t cause your hair to go everywhere, causing flyaways and frizz.
Given the size and weight of the styler, it’s necessary to hold the end of the Duet Style while passing it over your hair, in order to keep it steady and not pull too much on the hair, as well as give your arm a break.
The problem with this is that the styler gets hot and uncomfortable to the touch.
It’s not so hot that it burns you, but it’s hot enough for us to not want to hold it for long periods. It seems like the rubber edging is designed to help with this but it’s too narrow to really make a difference.
Plus, we’ve noticed that these rubber strips tend to attract a build-up of leftover heat protectant and styling products. It’s easy to remove it with a wet wipe or similar but it’s worth noting.
Speaking of which, it’s vital that you use a heat protector when using the GHD Duet Style. It may not seem like you need to, because it’s using hot air rather than hot plates in Wet mode, however, given how hot the air gets, and how long it’s left in direct contact with your hair, you’re potentially setting yourself up for damage if you don’t.
While the GHD Duet Style has a built-in filter, it doesn’t offer a cleaning mode (like the Dyson Airstrait) so you’ll need to keep it free from dust and build-up over time. GHD recommends using a soft toothbrush to keep this filter clear.
As you can see in our GHD Duet Style review before and after video below, the styler works as promised.
It definitely takes the hair from wet to dry. It manages to straighten it as well as a pair of hot-plate straighteners, and it has a surprising amount of shine. It also leaves the hair feeling soft and smooth.
What’s more, the style seems to last much longer than when we blow dry our hair. Because we have naturally wavy hair, as soon as it gets even a hint of humidity – either in the air or because we get so hot our head starts sweating – our hair starts curling and turns frizzy.
After using the GHD Duet Style, we were able to go to a sweaty comedy gig (which involved walking in cold, damp air) and our style remained in place the whole time. No frizz, minimal wave or curl.
@victoria_woolly_web The GHD Duet Style costs £379 in the UK 😅 it took 15 minutes 😏😳 to complete this and while it looks fine, it doesn’t blow me away. I think I can get a better finish with more body and movement and less brittle-looking ends using my Revlon 2-in-1 brush tbf 🤷♀️ The fact it got my hair that straight with just air is decent though, and it does have hot plates should you want them #mamabella #ghdhair #ghdduetstyle #ghdduet #ghdduetreview #straighthair ♬ Flowers – Miley Cyrus
That said, this can also be a downside. The styler’s ability to create straight, smooth finishes and knock out any frizz can also result in it getting rid of body and movement. The root drying vents do help to add volume at the roots, so that’s something.
We don’t tend to like straightening our hair using regular straighteners because our hair is so fine and thin that it tends to look limp and flat. The GHD Duet Style caused the same problems. That means it’s not a unique flaw of the Duet Style, but it is worth noting.
This is also exacerbated by the fact the size of the overall styler, and the small plates, don’t bring a huge amount of versatility. We like to use our regular GHD straightener to add flicks, waves, and curls, but its smaller design and smooth, contoured edges make this easy.
The Duet Style is too large and too unwieldy to move around the head, and twirl around the hair in the same way. Especially on our mid-length hair. No matter how hard we’ve tried, we’ve also not managed to add flicks or curls in the way that GHD promises.
GHD GHD claims its Duet Style can create multiple looks (pictured) but we’ve not managed to replicate anything other than poker straight hair
We wonder if this is, in part, because of the external drying vents. As we move the styler through the hair, these vents not only dry the roots but channel hair and dry the ends. This means that by the time the styler reaches the end of the hair, it’s already dry and harder to manipulate.
When used with the Olaplex Bonding Oil, our hair felt incredibly soft and smooth after using the GHD Duet Style. When used without, it still creates a sleek finish but it’s not quite as smooth.
Our biggest complaint, though, is the time it takes to achieve the finished look. On paper, the GHD Duet Style should speed things up by drying and styling at the same time. In reality, it slows things down.
Not only does it take time to section the hair, and make sure each section is protected, it then takes multiple, slow passes over each strand of hair to dry it effectively. This took us, on average, 15 minutes each time.
By comparison, we can usually dry and style our hair with the Revlon One-Step Plus in less than five minutes. Should we then want to straighten our hair, this only adds a couple more minutes smoothing the style. All without knocking out the body and movement our fine hair needs.
mamabella | mamabella The flow of air that comes out of both the inner, and outer drying vents on the GHD Duet Style doesn’t feel very powerful but they work surprisingly well
There’s no denying that the GHD Duet Style is pricey. You could buy the GHD Air (£119), GHD Platinum Plus (£229), and even the GHD heat protectant (£18.95) for less money, and they offer very similar use cases in terms of being able to dry and straighten the hair. In fact, you could even buy the flagship GHD Helios with the Platinum Plus for not a huge amount more.
It takes longer to go from start to finish with the Duet Style than when we blow dry and straighten our hair, and it offers far less versatility.
Despite our hair feeling softer when using the Duet Style, and the style lasting longer, we don’t think our hair looks as healthy as it does when we use the Revlon. Plus the sizzling and steam that comes off our hair when using the Duet Style – as you may be able to hear/see in the TikTok video above – doesn’t fill us with confidence that it’s protecting our hair as much as it could.
We imagine if you love wearing your hair straight, or your hair is naturally thick and hard to manage with a regular hair dryer, then we can see where the Duet Style could bring benefits.
If you want to give up your hot-plate straighteners, the Duet Style does offer the best of both worlds in terms of straight styles with less extreme heat. With the added benefit of plates as and when you need them.
All things considered, though, there’s little going in GHD’s favour.
That’s not necessarily a fault of GHD per se. It’s more a fault of the overall wet-to-dry styling trend generally but at this price point, we can’t, in good faith, recommend it. Unless you have money to spare and don’t mind taking a risk.
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
