GHD has announced a new straightener, and while that’s exciting for anyone with hair, what’s exciting to us at Gizmodo Australia is the company’s Air Fusion tech.
The sales pitch for the new $595 GHD Duet Style is “GHD has achieved the impossible: wet to styled in one tool”. It promises no damage (well, no thermal hair damage was detected after four passes in wet to style mode vs naturally dried hair), 48 hours of “unprecedented softness” and that it’ll give your hair double the shine it had already.
While that’s great from a marketing perspective, we wanted to know a little more about the tech, given GHD said in its announcement that: “the scientists and engineers at GHD have achieved the impossible.”
According to GHD, the Duet Style is the result of taking 21 years of heated styling and drying R&D and combining the “science of convection and conduction” to create something it’s calling Air Fusion technology.
In a nutshell, Air Fusion technology brings together the power of airflow and the performance of actively heated styling plates.
According to Hayley Pullyn, GHD education manager for Australia and New Zealand, Air Fusion has quite a bit complexity to it, combining the company’s Helios hair dryer and Platinum+ styler tech and utilising conduction and convection heat.
Drying convection is what you get out of your hair dryer – conduction is from a straightener, where the plates sandwich your hair to heat it to a point that allows for changing the shape of your hair follicle (ie, from wavy to straight).
As someone with very, very long hair, I’ve recently become obsessed with hair tech. So I asked Pullyn to drill in a little deeper in case you’re also a hair tech nerd.
She said there are five components that make up Air Fusion technology:
- Airflow: Its air filter design allows for maximum airflow to be drawn into the hot air styler for more power
- Internal aerodynamics: A compact brushless DC motor that delivers precise air speed with reduced turbulence and low sound levels
- Drying chamber: Combining internal aerodynamics with four smart styling plates, this delivers an ultra-concentrated airflow through a honeycombed shaped air grille working alongside the smart low-temperature plates to dry and style hair at the same time
- Smart styling plates: Infinity sensors predict the hair’s needs to maintain an optimal low styling temperature from root to tip, drying without sucking out all your hair’s natural moisture, which results in wet-to-styled with no damage, sizzling or burning smell (and delivering on this 48-hour softness claim)
- and angled root-drying vents: A specially designed nose seal concentrates the airflow inside the chamber and directs it outwards through expertly angled root-drying vents, ensuring an optimal root-drying performance, with no extreme heat.
The GHD Duet Style was 10 years in the making and has been tested on over 3,500 women worldwide. Sometimes it’s just cool to see what goes on behind a product you might use daily without a thought.
This article has been updated since it was first published.