How Important is Wattage?

When it comes to blow dryers, we’re often lead to believe wattage is synonymous with power. However, in the world of hair-care, wattage simply refers to energy consumption.

In fact, it’s an industry myth that wattage directly correlates with performance.

Wattage does matter, but only to an extent: The amount of power put in, the more power you get out. While a high power or salon dryer uses more energy, that's not necessarily the best form of measurement in terms of quality. A blow dryer may use high wattage but fry your hair to a crisp! Meanwhile, a hair dryer with less wattage might actually be more energy efficient. So, when it boils down to power and performance...wattage is not exactly the best barometer.

Additionally, many dryers claim to reach a certain amount of wattage. However, when systematically measured, blow dryers often use a far lower amount than commercially stated. To prove this, a study utilized a Kill-A-Watt power meter to test the wattage of various popular, high-end hair dryers.

A contactless IR thermometer was used to measure the temperature emitted from the dryers. The study came to the following conclusions.

1) Power only moderately correlates to output temperature.

2) The priciest hair dryers are not always the most powerful.

3) The priciest hair dryers are not always the most energy efficient.

4) The actual peak power is far lower than commercially advertised.



It was discovered many brands inflate the actual wattage of products by number 1875, 2000 and even 2200. In other words, wattage is not the sole indicator (or necessarily the best!) for power and energy efficiency.

Here at VOLO, our cordless hair dryer uses around 600 watts. Despite using less wattage than your standard dryer, the VOLO Go actually dries your hair faster while simultaneously consuming less energy. We believe it’s far more powerful than traditional hair dryers in the aspects that matter most.

At the end of the day, the VOLO Go dries hair more quickly + healthily than conventional dryers...which feels like a win in our book.

Feel free to shoot us an email for more information regarding our research!