Happy Hairdrying! Philips 1600 Hairdryer. (Other Electric Hair Styling Products)

Member Name: catherineblack

Product:	Other Electric Hair Styling Products
Date:	15/09/01 (301 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: small and light, fast drying without burning , better than most small hairdryers

Disadvantages: can cut off if overheats

Most of my hairdryers have blown up over the years. The usual scenario - you're sitting drying your hair and sparks fly, the smell of burning hair hits your nostrils and you suddenly realise that you will have to face the day with mad hair because your hairdryer has packed in. Well the last time that this happened my mum went off and bought me the Philips 1600 Silence Hairdryer which has since turned out to be a long-lasting buy. It was about 3 or 4 years ago now and there have been no signs of trouble. (As yet!)

This is not a salon style hairdryer(they are usually quite big and heavy) so it is light, and you do not get sore arms if you're spending a long time drying your hair. It is a great size to take on holiday, not as small as travel hairdryers but a better quality hairdryer. The size of it is approx. 7 inches by 3 inches with a 5 inch handle. The electrical cord is approx. 5 feet 5 inches long, long enough to dry your hair in front of a mirror which isn't near the plug. At the top of the cord is a hook which means you can hang the dryer from a nail or hook.

As I've said, this dryer is not heavy, the handle also has grooves which allow you to hold it with ease. Sometimes if you've had hairstyling product on your hands dryers will slip, the grip helps prevent this.

Now for the hairstyling bit! There are three temperatures for drying hair; cool, low heat and high heat. Cool is actually cold and best used to set your hair once it's styled and dried, according to hair magazines it helps keep your hairstyle in place, sort of setting it.

I usually use the highest heat because I'm usually in a hurry and set it with the cool setting. It has never damaged my hair or burnt it. But that is also down to common sense, you do have to be careful not to hold it too close to your scalp otherwise it does feel very hot!

The low heat is effective as well and best used if you're drying certain areas
of hair very close to the head - (so you don't burn yourself like you may with the high heat.)

The nozzle on the Philips 1600 is not suitable for diffusing hair (I think that's the term, ie, drying curly hair usually needs special diffusion nozzle to prevent frizziness). It is best used on straight hair or for straightening wavy hair (like mine). On the other hand though, my hair can go very wavy with loose curls when it's long. I used to dry my hair naturally then finish it with the Philips on a low heat and slow speed. This allowed the waves to stay in and didn't create frizz in any way! (So it is ok for curls, though diffusers are meant to be more effective.) Now my hair is short I like to dry it straight and find the nozzle helps to focus the heat on particular areas.

There are two speeds on this hairdryer, fast and slow (obviously!!). Fast helps dry hair quickly. Slow is great for intricate styling and stops hair being blown all over the place.

I've used this dryer with very long hair and now short hair. There is no difference in quality of drying, I found it very effective when I had long hair. Previously I always thought that you needed a big salon style dryer for long hair but I was wrong!

Only twice has it given me trouble, recently I was drying the same area of hair over and over on a high heat, very close to the hair(mad wavy bit of hair I wanted to straighten!!) and it cut off. It had gotten too hot and automatically switched itself off. This only happened one other time and was really my fault. But it was good to know that it cuts off when it overheats as opposed to making sparks fly like other hairdryers!

It is classed as a 'silence' hairdryer, and it isn't very noisy, but isn't very quiet either! It's kind of inbetween, not as irritating as others can be!

Finally, at the time my mum bought it, it was around £15 I think, I'm not sure how much it sells
for now. Happy Hairdrying!

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