My Bouncy, Salon-Worthy, At-Home Blowout Is All Thanks To This One Tool

I get a regular workout in every Sunday when I wash my hair — the sectioning, detangling, washing, parting, and drying have my arms burning for close to three hours as I run through my weekly routine. As necessary as all those steps are to ensure my hair will remain healthy and easy to work with throughout the week, I always knew there was an easier way to get from drab to fab (and off to brunch quicker).

There are a ton of blow dry brushes on the market for this very purpose. They work by utilizing heat to simultaneously smooth and volumize hair as you’re brushing it. However, my hair is so thick I usually need two stylists with high-powered blow dryers to work on it when I’m at my local salon, so I’ve always been skeptical about them. However, the T3 AireBrush caught my attention because it was created with coarse hair types in mind. You’re telling me I can get a salon-worthy blowout at home with just one tool? If this was in fact true, I had to try it out for myself.

The brush includes three different temperature settings assigned for your hair texture category (1 for fine hair, 2 for medium, and 3 for curly). There is also a cool setting, which the instructions say is designed to “lock in your look.” T3’s Director of Brand and Product Marketing Jen Ju highlights that in addition to the range of heat and speed settings, “the evenness of heat, the size of the brush, and the SmoothGrip bristles are specifically designed to help stretch and style coily hair.”

On wet hair, I coat my curls in Hair Rules No Suds Cleansing Cream, then I detangle with a wide-tooth comb and loosely part my hair in six sections to get any dead hair out and smooth any knots. After rinsing out the cream, I like to tie a big scrunchie or use a claw clip on each section before doing anything to prevent applying more heat than necessary on the same strands. Then I plug in the T3 brush.

Without this handy tool, drying and styling my hair with a regular blow dryer can take up to 90 minutes, depending on how dedicated I am to having a smooth, frizz-free head of hair. I usually get tired about 45 minutes in, make sure my roots are dry, and call it a day — throwing it up in a puffy pony or mentally reserving time before bed to braid my hair. With the T3 hair brush however, I can go from damp hair straight out of the shower to silky and straight in under 35 minutes.

A quick towel dry is all that’s required before running my coils through the brush on the third heat setting. Its proprietary EvenFlow technology keeps the heat level consistent through all parts of the brush, ensuring there is as little heat damage as possible. The only downside I can think of is I felt there was a bit of a learning curve when it came to understanding the symbols on the handle. The settings are atypical of your run-of-the-mill heat styling tool and therefore not as intuitive as I’d like. I had to refer to the instructions to figure out how to optimize the heat and speed settings.

Depending on your activity levels (and the weather), the blowout can last anywhere from three to seven days. I can make it a full week if I don’t plan on going to the gym, but under sweatier conditions, the style will stay cute for two to three days max. I’ll go back in with the T3 SinglePass StyleMax flat iron if I need to freshen up the look, but prefer to keep away from heat altogether the majority of the time. It’s not as perfect or long-lasting as a salon blowout, but for at-home maintenance and the approachable price point, the convenience keeps me coming back to this tool most weeks.

At the end of the day, styling my hair with less effort and better results is all I can ask for out of a high-powered brush/hair dryer hybrid product. At $150, the T3 brush is a lot more affordable than similar products that have gained lots of hype online, and its compact size makes it easy to throw into a carry-on this summer for my next trip or special event.

Ahead, the products and tools I use in tandem with the T3 AireBrush for an at-home blowout.