Up until my early teenage years, I never really touched a hair appliance. My mom curled my hair with a curling iron for special occasions and used a blow-dryer on my hair maybe once or twice, but other than that, my fairly straight hair had always naturally air-dried and remained free of hot tools when styling. But, for some reason that remains unknown, my hair started becoming wavier and a bit frizzy.
Fast forward to today, and I still prefer to keep all my beauty routines to a minimum, so I was a bit disappointed when I discovered that I would have to straighten my hair after every shower if I wanted it to go back to its fairly wave- and frizz-free self. Because my “new” hair bothered me so much, I gave in, and for most of the past decade, I kept to that drill.
However, over time, straightening got too tiring and my hair became even a bit more unruly. Since I had been using a wet-to-dry straightener up until this point, I thought about adding a blow-dryer to the process to make sure my hair was fully dry and more manageable while straightening. But, as someone who had no experience with blow-dryers, I was a bit daunted by the fact that I would have to juggle a brush and a blow-dryer for at least 10 minutes in addition to straightening — that was before I discovered blow-dry brushes.
About two years ago, I bought the original Revlon One-Step Hair Dryer and Volumizer and added that as a predecessor to my straightening routine. This blow-dryer was the answer to my search for an easy-gliding experience since I was able to simply use the One-Step as I would a big heated straightening brush. “Not having to hold a blow-dryer really allows you to have more control and tension while rolling it,” New York City-based hairstylist Henry De La Paz adds.
After a few months of the One-Step and straightener combo, I realized I didn’t really need my straightener at all — as long as I didn’t desire a pin-straight look, the mostly-straight look satisfied me. This, in turn, saved my lazy self both time and energy.
This year, I found out that Revlon had released an updated version — the Revlon One-Step Volumizer Plus. This new hot tool has all of the same basic functions as its predecessor, but with a few upgrades added to improve the styling experience In fact, these upgrades helped the brush win a 2022 Allure Best of Beauty Award for Best Brush Dryer.
The bulk of these updates deals with the blow-dryer’s design. These include a smaller (now 2.4 inches as opposed to 4.25 inches) and now-detachable barrel, the addition of a fourth heat setting, medium (in addition to high, low, and cool), and a slimmer handle. Additionally, Revlon claims that the updated brush’s ceramic titanium tourmaline technology results in 50 percent less heat exposure, compared to the original’s ceramic coating that simply claimed to “protect hair from over-styling with even heat distribution.”
