I am dreadful at styling my unruly hair, but I managed to create a big bouncy blowout with the £30 Revlon One Step Volumiser and now I'm hooked

Despite being a beauty editor, I make no secret of the fact that I am utterly useless when it comes to styling my own hair. I have wasted countless hours armed with the best hair dryers trying to nail an at-home blow dry with the finished result always being totally underwhelming. As someone with hair that has a natural curl and is prone to frizz, I find that my hair often looks slightly dull with an abundance of flyaways at the roots. Of course, I’m well aware that much of this is probably down to my total lack of styling skills rather than the tools themselves. After all, when I’m at a salon, hairstylists seem to have no problem blow drying my hair into a sleek, shiny, bouncy style using a hair dryer alone. But, for me, I tend to find that haphazardly drying my hair and then styling it with tools like my beloved curling wand or some hair straighteners is the only way that I can get close to the look I want.

Suffice to say, this is why I’ve never had much interest at all in the blow-dry brushes and Dyson Airwrap multi-stylers that everyone raves about. To me, they often look like a bit of a faff to use and I’ve never been convinced that I’d be able to achieve the kind of impressive-looking blowouts that some people do using them.

However, there’s one tool that I couldn’t help noticing every time I scrolled through TikTok with users claiming it to be the key to getting a salon-standard blowout at home—even if you’re rubbish at doing your own hair. Enter: Revlon One-Step Hairdryer and Volumiser.

Promising to dry hair quickly, smooth lengths and add volume at the roots, the 2-in-1 tool has hundreds of 5-star reviews on Amazon from people raving about this product. And while the price varies depending on where you buy it, the fact that you can pick one up for just over £30 also appealed to me. So, is it worth the hype? Keep scrolling for my honest review. (Spoiler: I’m seriously impressed.)

My honest Revlon Pro Collection Salon One-Step Hairdryer and Volumiser Review

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

As someone who is instantly put off when a hair tool has lots of attachments or an enormous instruction manual, I was pleasantly surprised that the Revlon One-Step Hairdyrer and Volumiser is an entirely self-contained tool. The only thing you get in the box is the device itself and a tiny leaflet providing a simple guide to the very few buttons. There are no changeable heads so all you need to do is plug it in and off you go. There are two heat settings to choose from—high for thicker hair or low for finer hair—and a cool setting to help set your finished style. Simple.

GETTING STARTED

Despite being called a hairdryer, surprisingly you can’t use the Revlon One-Step Hairdryer and Volumiser on soaking wet hair. The instructions state that you should towel-dry your hair first to remove excess water and detangle it with a comb or brush before getting started. I brushed mine through once I got out of the shower as usual, and then left it to air dry while I got ready. Once my hair felt slightly damp but about 80% dry I applied a heat protectant (I used the Olaplex Volumising Blow Dry Mist) and then got ready to start styling.

USING THE REVLON ONE-STEP HAIRDRYER AND VOLUMISER

As mentioned, because I am so rubbish at doing my own hair, I watched TikTok videos of people using this tool to get some tips. Generally, people recommend leaving your hair until it’s almost dry and then sectioning it off. I separated the top section of my hair and pinned up my fringe. I also noticed that a lot of people suggested blow-drying each section of hair using a twisting motion—starting near the roots of your hair with the brush and then twisting it downwards as the hair fans itself out around the brush. I’ll admit I was a bit nervous about this at first as I imagined my hair would get tangled in the bristles and end up getting blasted with heat for way longer than is healthy. But, I have to say, it worked amazingly well.

I used the low heat setting—I found that the higher setting felt way too hot and I was concerned it would burn my hair—and was able to work my way around all sections of my hair in about 10 minutes. The tool itself was fairly lightweight and comfortable to use, although the brush is big. I had my hair cut recently so it currently sits just past my shoulders, so if you have a bob or a shorter style I think the barrel will be too big for styling your hair with. Thankfully, I discovered that the brand has another version for mid to short length hair. The other frustration point (which might be entirely down to how I was holding it rather than the tool itself) is that I kept accidentally knocking the heat setting up to the higher temperature while it was in use. It would be good to be able to select the heat with a button rather than the twisting motion which can be easily adjusted.

THE RESULTS

The first thing I have to mention is how good my hair felt after using this tool. As I mentioned before, when blow-drying my hair with a hairdryer, it usually feels dry and a bit frazzled afterwards, but my hair felt incredibly smooth, soft and silky. For that alone I would happily recommend this product. Not only that, though, but I was seriously impressed with how my finished style looked too. Bouncy, full of volume, and impressively smooth. Sure, I still have some flyaways, but I’m not a professional stylist and my hair tends to have a life of its own.

I would never be able to achieve anything close to this finish using a standard hair dryer, without reaching for curling tongs or straighteners—and even then I don’t think I’d be able to achieve this level of volume. In fact, I was so blown away by the results that I immediately messaged photos to basically all of my friends and family raving about it. Even if it cost three times the price, I’d recommend it.