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This Sabrina Carpenter-Approved L’Oréal AirLight Pro Hair Dryer Is the Only Tool That Keeps My Locks Silky and Bouncy in the Winter
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Anyone who watched Sabrina Carpenter during the 2025 Grammy Awards might be equally amazed by the artist’s performance as much as her bouncy, voluminous hair. The “Espresso” singer’s secret hair weapon? The L’Oréal Professionnel AirLight Pro Hair Dryer, which was used by hair stylist Evanie Frausto.
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It’s safe to say the hair dryer and hair styling tools market is oversaturated these days, with new, specialized models (like those specifically made for curly hair) hitting shelves at an impressively fast rate. Given all this competition, household-name beauty brands are constantly trying to up the ante — producing salon-quality hair dryers with bells and whistles like infrared light, app compatibility, special attachments for concerns like flyaways, and the light-as-a-feather, smart designs of these tools make them easy to plop into your carry-on luggage.
At WWD, though, our shopping editors take trendy beauty tools with a grain of salt and never give our seal of approval without rigorous rounds of product testing. When the L’Oréal Professionnel AirLight Pro Hair Dryer launched in November 2024 — to the tune of much TikTok discourse on whether a hair tool pricier than the famed Dyson Supersonic is actually worth it — it was clear that we needed to verify whether all of its claims were, indeed, legitimate.
There’s already ample evidence to back the hair tool’s hype, considering that the L’Oréal Professionnel AirLight Pro Hair Dryer was a top-choice beauty product during the 2025 Golden Globes: used by hair stylists responsible for the glam looks of Emma Stone, Zoe Salda?a, and Cristin Milioti. Still, some first-person testing was in order. As it turns out, the AirLight Pro ended up blowing us away… quite literally.
L’Oréal Professionnel is not the only brand behind this product drop. The brand released the dryer in partnership with Zuvi — of Zuvi Halo Hair Dryer fame, which made it on our roundup of the best hair dryers for curly hair. The Halo impressed WWD’s Senior beauty and lifestyle commerce editor, Claire Sullivan, with how it never overheats and doesn’t cause her hair color to fade. Its LightCare feature uses light to dry only the water droplets on the surface of hair, whilst securing internal follicular moisture. The AirLight Pro effectively took all those perks and refined them, but not without a significant price tag increase.
Read on for our honest testing review of this L’Oréal Professionnel AirLight Pro hair dryer, then peep the FAQ section for tips on how to make it work for you. And, if you feel love at first sight creeping in, seal the deal by shopping the AirLight Pro at Ulta or Amazon. We don’t anticipate this new product seeing any sales anytime soon, but let’s just say it’s worth snagging at full price.
How We Tested the L’Oréal Professionnel AirLight Pro Hair Dryer
Product tested: L’Oréal Professionnel AirLight Pro
Testing time period: Two weeks
Hair type tested: Thick, highlighted, naturally curly hair
Where to buy the L’Oréal Professionnel AirLight Pro: Amazon, Ulta
Pros: Significantly cuts back on drying time; works to reduce frizz and increase hydration if used after a styling cream; intuitive controls and even more customization options with AirLight Pro app; instant turn-off and very quiet functionality, despite having impressive wind speed
Cons: Temperature jump when switching between diffuser and concentrator attachments is pretty severe; frizz persists when used without any product; infrared light feature’s effects hardly noticeable, besides contributing to the overall reduction in drying time
Editor testing review: The L’Oréal Professionnel AirLight Pro Hair Dryer is an absolute godsend for those winter days when you don’t want to step out in the cold with semi-dried hair. It provides mighty airflow, easy-to-regulate temperature controls, and a wide range of settings to fit your hair type. While downloading the compatible app is not a must, this will definitely unlock even more personalization and options (like pro modes for hair that’s colored, bleached, thinning, thick, and beyond). The only downside to this hair tool is that it needs to be used in conjunction with hydrating cream for best results, especially on curly hair prone to frizz.
L'Oréal Professionnel AirLight Pro
$475
$475
Price upon publish date of this article: $475
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An Honest Review of the L’Oréal Professionnel AirLight Pro Hair Dryer — Editor Testing Notes
As someone with a low patience level and high-maintenance curly hair, I’ve been known to not give my hair’s texture the specific care it deserves. This usually means that I use some combination of drugstore shampoo and color-preserving conditioner for my highlights during a wash and then towel-plus-air-dry my hair — brushing it out once before haphazardly scrunching up my curls for added bounce. During warmer months, it’s not a big problem that my hair isn’t 100-percent dry before I step outside (in fact, I love the breezy feeling!); once wintertime hits, though, I have to hide it under a beanie or else risk getting an actual cold.
On the product front, only occasionally do I put a post-wash treatment into the mix, like the Fekkai Brilliant Gloss Finishing Cream or the Ogx Locking + Coconut Curls Air Dry Cream for some shine and anti-frizz action. That being said, I decided to test the tool in three different contexts — once after thoroughly applying the finishing cream from Fekkai, once without this cream, and once without any product at all (shampoo and conditioner included). The motivation behind that latter choice was to see if the AirLight Pro’s promise of retaining hair strands’ internal moisture could be attributed to the dryer directly, without being confounded by the moisture-providing qualities of the hair products.
The tool’s other promises include, in no particular order — drying hair 14 percent faster; providing high-definition smoothing with the concentrator attachment (which allows for heat of up to 285 degrees); and being L’Oréal’s first professional dryer that’s augmented with infrared light technology, allowing for more targeted drying and hydration with zero damage.
During my first go with the hair styling tool, I decided to bypass the accompanying AirLight Pro app and set up the dryer in a more old-school way. This turned out to be quite an intuitive process with absolutely no learning curve. The diffuser and concentrator attachments snap onto the dryer’s body magnetically, with auto-detection and automatic temperature adjustment for good measure. Settings (three heat options and three airflow strength options) can be manipulated by pressing the front and back buttons, respectively. When using the diffuser, you can toggle between the temperatures of 120, 160, and 195 degrees Fahrenheit. For the concentrator nozzle, the choices are 195, 250, and 285 degrees Fahrenheit. You can not only feel the changes in heat and wind almost instantly but also track all these metrics on the dryer’s digital screen, whose only drawback is that it’s pretty small. Holding down the front button emits a cold shot of air to lock in your style at the end of the drying process.
After keeping my hair in a towel for about five minutes, I flipped it over and started running the diffuser through my curls — bottom to top, while making sure I don’t linger in any area for too long. At this time, I was getting ready for work, so I didn’t exactly have all day. Fortunately, the drying process with the diffuser only took me about eight minutes, and then I smoothed out my bangs (which were the definition of poofy at this point) with the concentrator attachment. I also made sure to run the concentrator through my roots for a volume-slash-straightness boost. Word to the wise: The automatic temperature jump when attaching the concentrator is pronounced, so ensure you don’t burn yourself by taking it down a few notches. As for wind speed, the dryer’s 17-blade motor force also took me by surprise and made me adjust the setting to something slightly less evocative of monsoon winds. I was left impressed by the fact that, despite all this power, the sound emitted by the dryer was very demure and very mindful. After using the concentrator, I turned off the tool (which happens immediately, whereas many hair dryers are slower to ease out of activity) and assessed the final look.
It was everything I wanted and more: My curls were as big, defined, and hydrated as I’ve ever seen them, and I didn’t look like a fuzzy dandelion (which is usually what happens when I air-dry my hair and then brush it out). In fact, I could see the very moisture the AirLight Pro promised to provide, but I still had to try out the tool in two more contexts to be highly certain that its powers are consistent.
When I used it without post-wash product, I do have to say my hair was a tad bit more frizzy (visual below for reference). Gone were the tidy, voluminous curls I got when I applied the Fekkai finishing cream prior to drying. Now, after eight-ish minutes of work by the dryer, there were some strands that ended up straight and some that were curly. The vibes were more “I just came back from swimming and laying on the beach” versus “I’m ready to go to my big-girl job in NYC,” which I had to course-correct by brushing out my hair and putting it up in a tight pony. During this testing stage, it’s important to note that I also tried out the AirLight Pro’s infrared light feature — which is activated by using it sans attachments and aiming its bright blue light directly on your mane. The tool’s infrared light is meant to replicate natural evaporation processes and thereby shorten drying time, which I can verify did, indeed, happen. Other results were harder to suss out, which is why our editors always take claims related to infrared light (even face mask–related ones!) with a grain of salt.
As you might’ve predicted, when I tested the dryer without any extra moisture-givers in the form of either shampoo, conditioner, or finishing cream — to mimic what I might do when time is running out for a thorough wash yet I feel compelled to wet my hair anyways, like after an at-home workout — frizz was even more prominent. In short, the curly-haired among us will get the best results with the AirLight Pro if they use some kind of cream before drying and carefully run it through their strands from the ends to the mid-sections.
One of my favorite aspects of trialing the dryer was, in fact, using the AirLight Pro app, which provided a more nitty-gritty way to stay in full control of its settings. All you have to do to pair your phone with the dryer is to simultaneously hold down the air speed button at the back and the temperature control button at the front for about three seconds. A QR code proceeds to pop up on the dryer’s built-in screen, which you then have to scan via the app. Henceforth, full customization is possible — from the trivial (renaming your dryer and even adding a picture from your camera roll that will greet you every time you open the app) to the game-changing (selecting basic modes for sleek, curly, and coily hair or pro modes for hair that’s colored, bleached, thinning, thick, and beyond; adjusting heat and wind levels in a more incremental way than what can be done manually; switching temperature to Celsius if you’re more well-versed in the metric system, like I am; and learning ways to optimize your new tool via the “Explore” tab).
I truly appreciated this high-tech element which, to be sure, doesn’t reflect the fact that a hair tool is actually more effective than comparable models but nonetheless makes the whole experience of getting your ‘do ready that much more interactive and fun. Not many hair dryers currently on the market come with app compatibility, as it turns out, though this seems to be an emerging feature that more and more hair care brands are slowly tapping into. For comparison’s sake, the Dyson Airwrap i.d. Multi-Styler and Dryer is a tool for curly hair that also offers the option of being used hand in hand with an app. It might be a tad bit more sophisticated than the AirLight Pro app, seeing as how it lets users create a personalized hair profile (with adjustments for length, thickness, and texture), curates an ideal curling sequence based on said profile, and then saves the settings for easy replicability. While the AirLight Pro app doesn’t have an option to curate your unique hair profile, I’m hoping an update comes around soon to change all that.
Either way, air-drying just doesn’t cut it for me anymore after seeing that, yes, the grass is greener on the other side. Sure, the L’Oréal Professionnel AirLight Pro might be the most expensive hair dryer (or even beauty product) I’ll ever own, but I’m dead-set on making its cost per use as low as possible by taking advantage of this hair dryer — always with some kind of cream, to save my curls from frizz! — after absolutely every wash.
L'Oréal Professionnel AirLight Pro
$475
$475
Price upon publish date of this article: $475
L’Oréal Professionnel AirLight Pro FAQs
How do you use the L’Oréal Professionnel AirLight Pro?
The AirLight Pro is an intuitive tool, and we recommend using it after priming your hair with a quick towel-dry and the addition of some sort of styling cream (especially key for wavy-to-curly styles). To get the hair dryer up and running, toggle its on-off button up (it’s the lower one of the two on the back), press the top button at the back to manipulate the airflow, and then press the button on the front to choose between three temperature settings.
Pressing and holding the back air speed button will give you access to various hair modes, which can also be selected via the AirLight Pro app, available to download on Apple and Android devices. Open said app and pair your phone to the dryer by simultaneously holding down the air speed button at the back and the temperature control button at the front, for about three seconds. A QR code will pop up on the dryer’s screen, which you then have to scan. From there, set up your app interface with settings that work for you (from basic modes like curly and sleek to pro modes like those targeted to grey hairs or the scalp, as well as more detailed temperature and airflow controls). Having troubles? Check out the app’s “Explore” tab for troubleshooting tips or refer to the L’Oreal website’s AirLight Pro support options.
How should you clean the L’Oréal Professionnel AirLight Pro?
The AirLight Pro is equipped with two filters: one at the back and the other at the bottom of the handle. To take the guesswork out of cleaning, it gives users on-screen and in-app notifications whenever it’s time for a filter clean. Got the alert? Turn off and unplug the device — proceeding to detach the back filter by pulling on its circular plastic cover, turning it counterclockwise to separate this cover from the actual filter, and then dusting both components (with an option to run them under water or soak them for added thoroughness in cleaning). It’s essential to let everything dry before re-inserting the parts back into the device. For the bottom filter, access it by pinching the section where the body of the hair dryer meets its cord — twisting and pulling down. After the filter is freed, pull it apart to unclip it from the cord and wash it in the same manner as you did the back filter, similarly letting it dry (preferably overnight).
Is the L’Oréal Professionnel AirLight Pro worth the price?
Choosing whether or not to invest in any given hair care tool — particularly top-tier ones on the higher end of the price spectrum — is not a one-size-fits-all process. In other words, we encourage everyone to assess their own hair needs and gauge whether or not spending over $400 on a hair dryer is worth it to them. If you’re ready to commit, rest assured that the L’Oréal Professionnel AirLight Pro comes with a two-year warranty and was tested to last for 10 years of professional use. It will thus act as your longterm sidekick, making running out in the cold with half-dried hair a thing of the past. And if the dryer’s perks (faster drying time, high curl definition, customizable controls, and beyond) already intrigue you, that’s all the more reason to make this investment in yourself and your hair’s health.
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Meet the Author & Product Tester
Stacia Datskovska is a Senior Commerce Writer at WWD. Previously, she worked at ELLE DECOR as an assistant digital editor, covering all things luxury, culture, and lifestyle through a design lens. Her bylines over the past five years have appeared in USA Today, Baltimore Sun, Teen Vogue, Boston Globe, Food & Wine, and more. Prior to joining ELLE DECOR, Datskovska learned the ins and outs of e-commerce at Mashable, where she tested products, covered tentpole sales events, and curated gift guide roundups. She graduated from NYU with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and international relations. Datskovska regularly reports on trending beauty releases — occasionally testing them out to see if they’re worth the buy.
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