GHD’s Wet-To-Straight Duet Style Is a Workout for Your Arms, and Sounds Like a Plane

The GHD Duet Style promises to straighten your hair from wet, without damage, give you around 48 hours of “unprecedented softness” and double the shine you usually have.

It’s a neat hair styler, one that does what GHD says it does. But in practice, it wasn’t without its issues.

GHD Duet Style

GHD debuted the Duet Style hair tool last month. The hot air styler, GHD says, 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.

Using the GHD Duet Style

I have long hair, very long – at last measure, when trialling the Dyson Airwrap, it was 91 cms. Currently, my after-washing-hair routine is about 15-20 minutes: towel dry, brush, section, hair dryer, touch up with a straightener and add some product. The GHD Duet Style took about 35 minutes.

Upon switching the hair styler on, the sound is…obnoxious; it sounds like a plane is taking off. I kid you not. But, my hair dryer also sounds very loud, so I get it (I also am happy it’s not solely relying on heat to dry my hair like the Wet2Straight hair straighteners of yesteryear did). It’s also nowhere near as bad as the iron I’d use on my hair before high school.

The instructions for the GHD Duet Style are straightforward – turn it on, section hair, hold the straightener against your scalp for 3 seconds, then slowly bring it down the section of hair, repeating if necessary.

What’s not so good?

The hair itself got a little bit too hot to touch when I went over it more than three times within quick succession, but I couldn’t feel the heat beaming into my scalp like I would with my existing straightener. Within seconds, the heat from the hair had cooled.

As I just noted, I had to run over my hair three, sometimes four times, but I do think that was because I was starting with too thick of a chunk and was impatient with how fast I was moving the Duet Style through my hair – GHD does say to take it slow. Perhaps this is because I’m used to being super quick with my straightener passes to avoid burning my hair, or it’s just the curse of long hair.

It was also near impossible to get the roots of the back of my hair dried, so when I was done, there was a wet almost circle on top of my head. At the front, there was a noticeable kink – the Duet Style is just too thick.

Taking an accidental break when my dad called for three minutes, returning to the hair felt a lot better – it wasn’t necessarily damp but it was similar to when you’re not sure if clothes on the line are still wet or if they’re just cold. I put it down to the heat not making my hair sweat, but swelling, lingering over the strands I’d just passed over, plus the roots being a little bit wet making me think my hair just wasn’t drying as quickly.

For the first half of my head, I was using my right hand to hold the GHD Duet Style, helping ease the weight by grabbing the end of the plates on the outside with my left hand. About three-quarters in, the plates got ridiculously hot and I couldn’t use my other hand to guide it. My right arm was getting very sore. The Duet Style isn’t overly heavy but 20 minutes-plus of constant use took its toll.

Considering I’d probably take breaks from the Duet Style to do my makeup throughout the process, the colour white was certainly a choice GHD made.

Verdict

Overall, the GHD Duet Style works really well. My hair was dry, straight and felt so soft. It’s also a gorgeous-looking tool.

Once you’re done drying the hair, you can cut the engine and use it as a standard straightener, which didn’t feel like it was burning my follicles nor ruining the air-dried feel I had from using the Duet Style. I do wish it tamed my flyaways more, but that seems like more of a symptom of being way overdue for a haircut. I also didn’t use any product in my hair after I washed it.

For $595, I can’t escape the fact that it only dries and straightens your hair, not the extra stuff the likes of a Dyson Airwrap does. Of course, you can curl your hair with the GHD Duet Style like you would a standard straightener, but there’s no attachment for people like me who are yet to master the art of straightener curls.

The day after, my hair still felt soft and barely knotted overnight when I slept. By day two, a light brush solved everything and while it was feeling a little dirty around my fringe region, the rest of the hair was a pleasure to run my fingers through. On day three, I was getting due for a wash and only washed it so I could have another try of the Duet Style before returning it to GHD and giving you my review.

My second experience with the GHD Duet Style was much the same, I just got quicker at it and learned how to get a little closer to the scalp.

Where to buy the GHD Duet Style

GHD $595 | The Iconic $595 | Sephora $595