Review (2/5): Too Hot to Touch
Upon opening the box, I assumed I was getting a steal of a deal with how fancy the box looked. Then, there was a box within that box that looked just as nice. I was very impressed by the packaging. The box included the hair dyer, two different end caps, and a piece of paper with description, instructions, warranty info, etc.
The instructions didn’t really give much useful information. Nowhere on the piece of paper did it mention why you would choose to use one head attachment over the other. The biggest confusion was having no description as to what the buttons on the hair dryer were for. The images on the instructions did not match what was on the hair dryer. (See picture of the buttons – the two larger buttons both have the same symbols with no description)
I put one of the head attachments on the hair dryer, then plugged the unit in. It immediately started running, so I had to use the trial and error method of figuring out which button controlled the speed and which button controlled the heat. The hair dryer had a good weight to it and wasn’t difficult to continually hold up to dry my hair. I’ve got medium length, fine/thin hair, and it took a little over 6 minutes to fully dry my hair. While using the hair dryer, and especially after turning it off, the black end attachment was extremely hot to the touch.
Comparing to a Revlon hair dryer of the same wattage, they are almost identical in size. When using the same hot/high dry setting, the Revlon hair dryer only took about 4 ½ minutes to dry my hair. Not a huge difference, but worth mentioning. They both have around the same loudness while running. The most important difference between the two hair dryers was the temperature of the end cap attachments after using to dry my hair. The Revlon hair dryer’s end cap was 143F after I finished drying my hair, while the xtava peony hair dryer’s end cap was 256F!
Overall, this hair dryer is just okay. It’s a good basic hair dryer, but I don’t know that I would pick it to use every day. The generic buttons on the machine and lack of instructions on what they were for was annoying, but obviously could be figured out after one use. I’m more disappointed in how dangerously hot the end piece gets after using it for just a few minutes of use. I typically have to switch positions of hair tools in my hands when I’m drying my right side vs my left side, but with how hot that end piece gets, it’s not practical to touch it to rotate it. I would hate for my toddler to get ahold of it after I use it and hurt himself (yes, you’re supposed to keep it out of reach of kids, but anyone with young kids knows how fast their little hands start feeling around on the counters as far as they can reach). If you don’t have young kids and have a high heat tolerance, the temperature of the unit while/after using likely wouldn’t be an issue, but for me, it’s a deal breaker.