How British innovation is heating up the blow-dry market

There is an awful lot of hot air behind one growth area of the economy – and a good thing too. ‘Hair tech’ – the gadgets that curl or straighten our locks – is one in which Britain leads the world, and which promises export growth.

We may not give it much thought as we wield our tongs and dryers, but hair tech involves the skill and innovation of thousands of specialist engineers, who have worked away on devices that heat air to exact temperatures using AI algorithms.

The ascent of ‘hair tech’ is on full display in the newly revamped beauty hall at John Lewis’s flagship Oxford Street store in central London.

Each of the biggest players – GHD (which stands for good hair day), Dyson and SharkNinja – has its own boutique.

Women who want messed-up ‘beachy’ waves or the bouncy blow dries of the Disney+ 1980s’ drama series Rivals can compare the competing products with their slick aesthetics and microchip-controlled heating systems.

Learn how to wave a Platinum straightening wand, the best performing product in GHD’s portfolio, and the enviable manes on Netflix’s Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders can be yours. This series revived the 1980s saying ‘the higher the hair, the closer to God’ – an aphorism that no doubt would be endorsed by Jeroen Temmerman, head of GHD.

He says that ‘demonstration and education’ – in other words, teaching customers how to use the tools, are key to its sales, which reached $380 million (£300 million) worldwide in 2023.

The prices of the most popular hair tech items, which range from £90 to about £500, may raise eyebrows.

Dyson’s Airstrait is £450, while the new GHD Duet Blowdry Dryer is £389.

But Temmerman, aged 53, defends the price tags, saying: ‘It’s all about design and not price.’

The global hair tech industry, worth about $10 billion a year, is part of the wider $100 billion hair care, hair appliances and nail product market. But the hair tech industry is growing by double-digits each year and the UK is leading the field.

The research behind a straightening iron or curling device is anything but simple. Temmerman says it can take five to seven years for a new product to evolve. GHD’s research laboratory outside Cambridge, which employs about 100 engineers, opened 21 years ago and now holds 117 patents.

The engineers work with material scientists and physicists on every aspect of ‘thermal manipulation’ – styling hair using heat –such as the elimination of ‘snagging and dragging’.

The company even says its hair stylers are dropped the equivalent of 35,000 times to check they can withstand everyday treatment.

GHD, which was founded in 2001, is also boosted by the research and development of its parent, American haircare group Wella, which is majority-owned by private equity giant KKR.

Another US group, SharkNinja, which made its name with vacuum cleaners, launched its Shark Beauty tools in 2021, while Dyson diversified into hair tech in 2016. The British company invested £500 million in that business two years ago and is pledging to launch 20 new hair products by 2026, following research into every aspect of hair from ‘cortex to cuticle’.

The company is cutting jobs in the UK, but still employs thousands of engineers on its campuses in Malmesbury, Wiltshire. SharkNinja has a research and development hub at its UK headquarters at Battersea Power Station in South-West London.

Surprisingly, the US – the land that has pioneered technology in every form from laptops to phones not to mention being a world-beater in big hair – is behind the curve when it comes to innovative coiffing products. Temmerman explains that American women turn more readily to hairdressers than their British counterparts, who tend to do more at home. Americans are also more wary of frazzling their hair with tongs or dryers that create too much heat.

Now he aspires to win over America with his range of straighteners and tongs which work at a relatively modest temperature.

The boom in hair tech is based on the perception that expensive devices are not a luxury, but ‘an essential’, as Temmerman puts it.

This was affirmed in the pandemic. In the early days of lockdown, it briefly seemed that people would not care how their hair looked, being stuck at home.

‘But then we all started to talk to each other on Teams or Zoom,’ Temmerman says, ‘and hair became really important.’