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- Very reasonably priced
- Foldable and compact
- Powerful performance
- No carrying case
- Nozzle doesn't deliver the smoothest results
- Not the lightest option available
If you’re about to jet off for some sun and you’re considering packing your full size hair dryer, you may want to think again. Many of the best hair dryers are only compatible with the voltage of the country they are bought in so there is a chance they won’t work at all aboard, or won’t work as well as what you are used to.
That’s where the travel hair dryer comes in. They have compact, foldable and lightweight designs to fit into luggage or gym bags easily and dual voltage switches so they will work wherever in the world you’re planning to visit. I have tested one of the cheapest options available in the Boots 1500W Travel Dryer for several weeks and in both Europe and the US to see if it’s one of the best travel hair dryers you can buy.
What do you get for the money?
The Boots 1500W Travel Dryer costs £10.99, which by all accounts is very reasonable for a travel hair dryer. It’s one of the cheapest options available but that’s not to say you don’t get a lot for that money. There’s no travel case like you’ll get with the Bellissima Italia B-Travel and it’s not as premium either, but the Boots 1500W Travel Dryer has a foldable design with a storage loop at the bottom of the handle, a nozzle included and dual voltage functionality.
The dual voltage functionality of 110-120 V and 220-240 V means you can bring this travel hair dryer anywhere in the world and it should be safe to use as long as you have set it to the correct voltage – something that can’t be said for hair dryers like the Dyson Supersonic Nural that is 35 times the price and doesn’t have dual voltage. The switch for the dual voltage is at the front of the handle on the Boots 1500W Travel Dryer and I advise you do this before you jet off as it is a little fiddly as all these switches are. Above the dual voltage switch are the controls, with two speed and heat settings, along with a cold setting.
The hair dryer head isn’t as narrow and slim as full-size hair dryer options like the Shark SpeedStyler, but the Boots 1500W Travel Dryer is lightweight, hitting the scales at around 410g when I weighed it. To put that into context, it’s a little heavier than the Bellissima Italia B-Travel that weighs 370g but lighter than the GHD Flight+ Travel that weighs 453g. The handle is slim and when folded, this travel hair dryer measures 17cm x 11cm.
The hair dryer itself is very much no thrills with an all-black finish and Boots branding on the end. As its name suggests, it offers 1,500W of power, which puts it in the middle of the Bellissima Italia B Travel and the GHD Flight+ Travel. In my tests, the maximum wind speed I got was 13.2m/s, which is slightly faster than the Bellissima Italia B-Travel as you would expect with that extra 100W. Noise levels meanwhile hit 78dB for this travel hair dryer, which is fractionally louder than the Bellissima Italia B-Travel I tested at the same time.
What’s it like to use?
I tested the Boots 1500W Travel Dryer in various scenarios including at home, at the gym and on a few different trips that saw it used in a couple of countries including the US and Germany. Each time I dried my hair with it, I had clean, wet hair with some heat protection spray applied to try and minimise the heat damage from testing.
I managed to rough-dry my hair – which is waist-length and very thick and coarse – in around 12 minutes, which is a little faster than I managed with the Bellissima Italia B-Travel. It’s not as fast as I can achieve using the Dyson Supersonic r or the Shark SpeedStyle that I have at home, and the results aren’t anywhere near as smooth either, but the Boots 1500W Travel Dryer is certainly faster than the options available in my gym, as well as several hotels I have stayed in.
There have been some reviews that say the Boots 1500W Travel Dryer cuts out due to overheating but I didn’t experience that on any occasion when using this travel hair dryer, which I feel is worth mentioning. Speaking of heat, there are two settings available on this travel hair dryer, neither of which I found too warm on my scalp. It’s not as comfortable an experience as the Dyson Supersonic Nural that detects your scalp and reduces the temperature accordingly to protect it, but it’s not uncomfortable either.
The cold setting is a nice addition, and something you don’t get on the Bellissima Italia B-Travel, though the nozzle included with the Boots 1500W Travel Dryer isn’t as slim as the Bellissima and doesn’t direct the air quite as precisely. That means it doesn’t deliver quite as smooth a result as I would have liked, even when blow drying with a round brush. It got me around 70% of the way to the final style I like but I needed to use straighteners after to achieve a smooth and sleek look.
The Boots 1500W Travel Dryer is comfortable to use, however. There’s a decent amount of power available too, so while it might not smooth flyaways as well as Dyson’s Supersonic hair dryers and their dedicated flyaway attachment, it does a decent job for its price and portable build. The loop for hooking it comes in handy too, and the velcro strap for securing the cord keeps everything neat and tidy when you’re packing it into a suitcase.
Should you buy the Boots 1500W Travel Dryer?
For its price, the Boots 1500W Travel Dryer is an excellent buy. It doesn’t have a fancy design like the Bellissima Italia B-Travel, there is no case included and the nozzle doesn’t deliver the smoothest results of travel dryers available but it’s powerful, lightweight and it will make light work of drying your hair on holiday or at the gym.
Unless you’re exceptionally great at blow drying, you will likely need to bring a pair of straighteners or another styling tool to help finesse results, but the Boots 1500W Travel Dryer is marketed as a travel hair dryer that will “blow you away” on the box and in my experience, it did an excellent job at delivering on that promise, especially considering it’s one of the cheapest travel hair dryers you can buy.
