I got my hands on the ‘first men’s hair dryer’ — and the results surprised me

Heist released the 3.0 Smart Hair Dryer with a bold claim last summer: that it’s the only hair dryer designed specifically for men. Could this mean it’s one of the best hair dryers for men? Well, according to Heist, there isn’t much competition!

There is no biological difference between male and female hair, so theoretically everyone can use every hair dryer, but there is a styling difference between male and female hair. Men tend to have different concerns to women: shorter hair styling, male pattern baldness and scalp care, for example. However, women with short hair could get on well with the Heist dryer, and similarly, men with long hair could get on better with a ‘female’ hair dryer. I found the Heist performed well drying long and short hair, so it could be far more versatile than the marketing lets on.

As I am a woman, I obviously could not test the Heist solely on myself. I got some help testing from both my editor Pete and my boyfriend Harry. Curious about the “first-ever” men’s hair dryer? Find out what I thought in this Heist 3.0 Men’s hair dryer review.

Heist 3.0 Men's hair dryer: Cheat sheet

• What is it? An ionic hair dryer, which means it emits positive and negative ions to reduce frizz
• Who is it for? Heist designed it for men, but it works a charm on both male and female hair
• What does it do well? It’s gorgeous, quiet, doesn’t get hot, and dries hair quickly
• What are its weaknesses? It doesn’t come with a range of attachments for different styling goals

Heist 3.0 Men's hair dryer: Specs

Heist 3.0 Men's hair dryer review: Price & availability

The Heist 3.0 Men’s hair dryer comes in two ‘kits’. One is the £199 Smart Dryer Kit — containing a hair dryer, magnetic thin styling nozzle, and brush — and the other is the £267 Pro Kit — including everything from the Smart with an additional diffuser and stand.

I tested the £199 kit, so missed out on the diffuser attachment and the stand.

Heist asserts that the 3.0 hair dryer is the only hairdryer designed purely for men on the market, which isn’t exactly true, although it certainly seems to be the only hairdryer marketed exclusively towards men. There are plenty of hair dryers out there with gender-neutral marketing, though, so I’ll compare them.

The Shark SpeedStyle hairdryer for curly and coily hair is £149 from Amazon U.K.; the Shark SpeedStyle hair dryer with three attachments is a little pricier at £179 from Amazon U.K.; Panasonic’s hair dryer with a styling nozzle and diffuser is £279 from Amazon U.K.; and at the furthest end of the price spectrum is the Dyson Supersonic hair dryer, £329 with five attachment from Dyson. Arguably the most versatile option here due to its diffuser and nozzle is the Shark SpeedStyle, which is £50-20 cheaper than the Heist dryer. Considering the Heist is an ionic, jet dryer, I think this price is decent. It’s not a fantastic deal, but it’s still worth it.

Heist 3.0 Men's hair dryer review: Design

I adore the design of the Heist 3.0 hair dryer. For starters, it’s incredibly lightweight, and doesn’t make your arm ache after long styling sessions. Its ergonomic design feels great in the hand and makes the hairdryer easy to control. 10/10, no notes.

There are three buttons on the handle of the dryer and an ‘on/off/max power’ switch on the opposite side. The buttons control heat, fan, and the cool shot setting. These buttons are tactile and easy to press, but it’s worth noting that they work a little differently to other dryers I’ve used. Instead of going in ‘1, 2, 3, 1’ order, they go in ‘1, 2, 3, 2, 1’. So if you’re on 1 and accidentally press up to heat setting 2, you have to click 3 times to get back to 1. It’s the same way for the fan setting.

The Heist 3.0 Smart Dryer basic kit comes with only one attachment: a magnetic styling nozzle, which is great. If you need a diffuser, though, which are generally more beneficial for curly hair, you must buy one separately or opt for the more expensive Pro Kit. According to Heist: “not everyone needs [a diffuser], so we made it optional. Less waste, more of what you actually need.” But just as not everyone needs a diffuser, not everyone may want the provided condenser styling nozzle. I would have preferred an option at checkout to swap out the styling nozzle for the diffuser, so people can select the tools they need in the basic kit.

Even with the Pro Kit, there’s no pick attachment available at all, which would be great for short hair that needs extra volume; nor can you buy a round brush for pompadour styles. So, if you need those specific attachments or you’ll be styling different types of hair then you may wish to opt for a Shark or Dyson dryer, which have a greater selection of attachments. If you just need a diffuser, the £267 Heist 3.0 Pro Kit, which does feature one, is £12 cheaper than the equivalent kit from Panasonic (£279). Or if you don’t need a stand, you can simply buy the basic kit with the £29 diffuser separately for a total spend of £228, undercutting the Panasonic offering by £50.

Heist 3.0 Men's hair dryer review: Performance

Heist describes the 3.0 Smart dryer as having ‘Plasma Coating Tech’. This basically means it’s ionic, so it emits positive and negative ions during heating. This energy is supposed to tame frizz and flyaways better than traditional methods of blow drying, and lots of other hair dryers have this. I did find the Heist was better and controlling frizz on both mine and my boyfriend’s hair — much better than my budget, basic £32 BaByliss 2200 dryer.

The Heist 3.0 also feels more powerful than the city hall at the end of Back to the Future. My fine, shoulder-length hair went from sopping wet to 80% dry in ten minutes, which is so monumentally faster than the aforementioned £32 BaByliss that I was a little lost for words.

The Heist hair dryer is an objectively very good hair dryer. It dries hair quickly, tames frizz, and my hair feels much less static than normal. It also runs really quietly, at just 91dB on max power. The BaByliss maxed out at a deafening 105dB during comparison testing.

Although the Heist performed very well on my hair, as a woman, I am not the brand’s target consumer for this model. As I touched on in the intro, I also used this dryer on my boyfriend’s hair for testing.

My boyfriend has very thick, low-porosity, 3a curly hair worn in a mullet style, so it’s longer at the back and shorter on the sides. He usually dries his hair with a diffuser, but as I mentioned earlier, that’s an optional £29 extra.

As his hair is low-porosity, it takes a while to dry. For reference, it took my shoulder-length, high-porosity hair to dry 80% in 10 minutes with the Heist dryer, and it took me 10 minutes to dry just one quarter of his hair.

That’s not a negative aspect of the Heist — it’s simply the nature of wildly different hair types. Even so, I was able to dry his hair into nice ringlets with a controlled scrunching motion. I love how lightweight the Heist 3.0 dryer is — other hair dryers would have my hand cramping and my arm aching with this amount of continuous use. The cord is also a massive 3 meters long, so I was able to move around and change angles without needing to adjust the plug. This is a great option for barbers and hairdressers, as the dryer won’t bog down your arm after long periods of use.

Given the ionic nature of the Heist, it was also able to dry his hair with minimal frizz, even after I didn’t use curl products. Overall, I’m really impressed with the performance of the Heist, which generally performs its job very well, whether you’re a barber or a home styler.

To test the Heist 3.0 on straight hair, I asked Tom’s Guide reviews editor Pete Wolinski to try it out. Here’s what he had to say…

“I tested the Heist 3.0 for around two weeks on my shoulder-length straight hair. It dried my hair to around 90% in not far over 5 minutes, which is impressive, although no faster than other jet dryers like my Shark FlexStyle 5-in-1. I also noticed no frizz while drying. I stuck to full heat and full power because I found the auto mode a bit too slow (although auto mode would be my choice if I were using the dryer regularly, to minimize heat damage).

“Fun fact: I’m the one in the studio photography for this article, and you can see my hair was pretty wet. I needed to get my hair dried quickly to make a meeting after that shoot, and the Heist did a standup job.

“The Heist’s magnetic styling nozzle also came in very handy, and was perfect for getting some volume into my otherwise relatively flat hair. It was great for precision styling, too: I have my hair cut to wear it swept back, which also allows me to flit between side and center partings when I want to, and the Heist’s nozzle was perfect for quickly drying a parting in place.”

Heist 3.0 Men's hair dryer review: Storage & maintenance

As mentioned above, the Heist 3.0 hair dryer is both lightweight and relatively small. It’s got a thin, barrel-like body, so will slot nicely away between uses. If you’re one to display your grooming products, though, Heist does sell a metal stand.

You can also remove the cap at the back of the dryer so you can get into the filter and ensure it’s well-maintained. This is better than the Shark SpeedStyle, which other users have criticized for its inaccessible (therefore uncleanable) filter.

The Heist is relatively portable given its compact (ish) size, but it doesn’t fold, so bear that in mind if you were going to take it on traveling or to the gym.

Heist 3.0 Men's hair dryer review: Verdict

For people who don’t want to splurge on a Dyson Supersonic, or Panasonic’s jet hair dryer, the Heist 3.0 dryer could be a great option. I really don’t see how this is a solely ‘male’ hair dryer, as it performs just like a regular unisex piece of tech. There’s nothing inherently masculine about the Heist: it dried my longer female hair just as well as it dried shorter male hair.

Forgoing the female or male marketing, the Heist 3.0 is simply this: an objectively good hair dryer. Men can use it and women can use it, just like everyone can use other hair dryers. The temperature isn’t necessarily cooler than other dryers; the max setting actually burnt my scalp. However, it tames frizz and flyaways just like it promises, can dry a whole head of hair in about 5 minutes, and is über quiet while it does all that. I’d like to see it come with more attachments, or at least have an option to add or remove desired frills pre-checkout.

If you need a stylish hair tool that’ll make you look as put-together as it is, there’s no reason why the Heist 3.0 Men’s hair dryer can’t be your next go-to styling option.