Remington Proluxe You hair dryer review: AI haircare, personalised for you

AI has taken the world by storm recently, helping to boost productivity, organisation and now, rather surprisingly, the quality of your hair, too. Remington’s latest hair dryer, the Remington Proluxe You, is part of a wider range of hair-styling tools that claim to harness the power of AI to keep your locks looking and feeling their best. Remington dubs this “StyleAdapt” technology.

This is one of the most unexpected areas in which I’ve seen AI used, so I was sceptical about whether the technology could indeed bring improvements to my haircare routine, over and above the average hair dryer. However, during tests, I was thoroughly impressed by the dryer’s temperature control and therefore comfort on my scalp, as well as how quickly it dried my hair. However, a few of its features could do with some refinement to justify the model’s £160 price tag.

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Remington Proluxe You hair dryer review: What do you get for the money?

Having been released in 2022, the Remington Proluxe You is the only AI hair dryer you can buy at the time of writing. Its closest competitor is still in development: a Kickstarter was launched in 2020 for an “AER cordless blow dryer”, which is yet to come to fruition, proposing the use of an AI-programmed algorithm to measure the ambient temperature and humidity levels of the air in order to dry hair faster.

The “AI” in the Remington Proluxe You hair dryer uses sensors to measure the temperature of the hair itself, making adjustments to ensure that, no matter what your hair type, it remains at the optimal temperature. I’ll cover this in more detail later.

The hair dryer itself is exceptionally well built. Sporting a classic gun-like shape, the body feels sturdy, with a brushed metallic finish that doesn’t easily mark or show dirt. It comes with a wide drying concentrator, a slim styling concentrator and a diffuser, all of which twist and lock into place on the front of the dryer. The locking system means that attachments can’t be spun around to different angles, but on the plus side there’s no risk of them falling off.

One small quirk of the attachments is that they all have a wider opening at the centre, so as not to block the sensor from scanning the hair. Contrary to what I expected, this wider opening only resulted in minimal, if any, reduction in control during styling.

The pink-toned infrared heat sensor is mounted into the centre of the front-facing grille, feeding its data back into a microprocessor inside the dryer. Rather than having AI built in, this microprocessor has likely been programmed by an AI-based algorithm, so it isn’t quite as groundbreaking as it first appears. Still, Remington claims that the AI-powered Quick Dry mode ensures users suffer 34% less hair breakage compared to drying hair on the model’s highest manual setting.

If this is true, the Remington Proluxe You hair dryer is likely healthier for your hair than using a standard dryer. However, since the “StyleAdapt” technology dictates the temperature at which you style hair, some users may feel frustrated that they can’t control the temperature manually if they so wish.

Nevertheless, the dryer does offer some degree of flexibility, with three speed options and four styling modes, all of which you can scroll through using buttons located on the rear of the handle. Below these, you have the power switch, which instantly brings the dryer to life. There’s also a cool-shot button on the front of the handle.

Note that the rear-facing controls can initially be fiddly to use if you’re coming from a typical hair dryer with front-facing controls. Luckily, the dryer remembers the settings you last used, so you won’t have to faff about with the controls too much.

An LCD display in the rear-facing grille of the dryer indicates the chosen styling mode and speed. The three speed settings are represented as different corners of a hexagon, while at the centre you’ll find a list of the four styling modes; the one selected will appear brighter.

There are three different AI-powered styling modes available: Quick Dry, for drying wet hair quickly; Diffuse, which is perfect for using alongside the diffuser on wavy and curly hair; and Style, which is best for blow-drying hair using a round brush and concentrator nozzles. The spinning LED indicators on the front of the handle display when the AI is scanning the hair, although this is mainly an aesthetic addition.

The final styling mode is the manual option that stops the AI from adjusting the temperature, although this just blows out hot air, so I’m not sure why anybody would use it over one of the “intelligent” modes.

Other features that claim to add shine and maintain even heat distribution include an “advanced diamond ceramic coating” on the grille, and ionic technology. While we can’t test their efficacy – and there’s very little literature available on their makeup or how they work – both are fairly standard features among mid-range hair dryers. The main selling point of this dryer is its supposed intelligence.

Certainly in its favour, this dryer packs a punch. Remington states that the Proluxe You’s whopping 2,400W of power can deliver speeds of up to 115km/h, although our tests measured a top speed of 70.2km/h. Note that since this model features a screen at the back, there’s no removable rear-facing grille, which makes cleaning the dryer more difficult.

With such a powerful motor, it’s no surprise that the Remington Proluxe You hair dryer is both heavy and loud. Weighing in at 897g without attachments but with the cable, it’s the heaviest hair dryer we’ve tested. Noise levels in use reached a whopping 94dBA, which is 2dBA quieter than the ReVamp Progloss 5500, which offers the same amount of power but weighs 13g less.

Other features to note are the 3m long salon cord, a generous five-year guarantee and a hang-up loop that can be opened and closed to store the cord.

Outrageously, compared to the rest of the market – which includes the ruinously expensive £339 Dyson Supersonic – the Remington Proluxe You hair dryer sits at the cheaper side of high-end, in a similar ballpark to our top-pick hair dryer, the £179 GHD Helios. That model comes with less power and fewer high-tech features than the Proluxe You. However, power isn’t everything, and the GHD Helios is 387g lighter and packs a similar punch.

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Remington Proluxe You hair dryer review: How does the AI work?

Don’t get too excited by the promise of AI – it’s neither as exciting nor as complex as ChatGPT, and has fewer far-reaching implications. Instead, the microprocessor in the Remington Proluxe You hair dryer will likely have been programmed using an AI-based algorithm that uses a huge data set based on a range of different hair types.

The AI, dubbed “Intelligent StyleAdapt Technology”, uses an infrared sensor to measure the temperature of the hair twice every second, for a total of more than 1,200 times in a ten-minute drying session. These readings are fed back into an intelligent microprocessor that sets the best temperature for your hair, making adjustments throughout the styling process.

It’s widely accepted in hair-drying and styling tools that consistent heat allows you to achieve the best results, which is the reason most hair dryers will stabilise the temperature of the air coming out of the dryer. In the Remington Proluxe You hair dryer, the minor adjustments the microprocessor makes to the temperature of the air keep the actual hair’s temperature at a healthy, consistent level during styling. This should supposedly lead to even more consistent results.

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Remington Proluxe You hair dryer review: What’s it like to use?

Before blow-drying my hair with the Remington Proluxe You hair dryer, I had some reservations about how well the AI would work, compared to a similarly priced, standard hair dryer. However, even with these reservations, I was impressed at how simple the dryer was to use, the smooth results it achieved, and how comfortable the heat levels remained on my sensitive scalp throughout testing.

As a preface, before testing hair dryers, I wash my hair as normal using a shampoo and conditioner. Then, while the hair is wet, I spritz it with a heat protection spray to guard hair against heat damage before blow drying. If your hair struggles to hold voluminous styles for long, you may choose to add mousse at this point; but to keep the tests identical between hair dryers, I don’t use any products that would prolong the style during testing.

During styling, I used the Quick Dry setting and the fastest speed to dry my roots and get the lengths of my hair 80% dry. Thereafter, I switched to Style mode and used a round brush to give my hair a bouncy blow-dry. Using this method, the hair dryer effectively smoothed the lengths of my hair, leaving it feeling lightweight and soft. These results also lasted throughout the day without losing volume or shape, indicating that the AI could be working its magic.

The temperature felt comfortable on my sensitive scalp throughout the styling process and, on other occasions, blasting my hair upside down using the Quick Dry mode got my thick, long hair dry in under five minutes, which is amazingly fast.

However, the dryer wasn’t flawless. Mid-styling, around five minutes of blow drying my hair using a round brush, I found that the dryer’s weight began to make my arms ache. This is a common problem with high-power dryers – the ReVamp Progloss 5500, which also has a 2,400W motor, caused the same issue – so I wouldn’t let this put you off if you’re looking for a model that will dry your hair in super-fast time.

The same is true of noise levels. In our tests, the hair dryer reached 94dBA, which is 2dBA quieter than the ReVamp Progloss 5500. Saying that, 94dBA is by no means quiet. A maximum continuous exposure time of one hour at this level could result in hearing damage. Obviously, this is far longer than the average drying session, but it demonstrates how noisy the dryer is.

While the controls were intuitive to use, I was frustrated that I couldn’t select a speed or styling mode on the LCD screen until the dryer was switched on and blasting hot air around. Despite the dryer’s memory function, I found I always wanted to start with the Quick Dry mode, switching to Style once my hair was 80% dry; this meant I was faffing about changing settings while the dryer was switched on. Admittedly, this was only a problem for a few seconds – just make sure you don’t accidentally blast your notes across the room as I did.

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Remington ProLuxe You hair dryer review: Should you buy it?

If you’re willing to drop £160 on a hair dryer, I can safely vouch that the Remington Proluxe You hair dryer is a great model for those folk with sensitive scalps. The AI technology is promising, the dryer never blew out air that was too hot, and the intelligent styling modes helped deliver quick, consistent results.

That said, the Proluxe You could do with some refinement before it can really outdo its competitors, especially at its £160 price. I’d prefer to have the option to manually control the temperature in the manual mode, and if the dryer could be made lighter and quieter, I’m sure Remington would be on to a winner.

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