Dyson Airwrap Co-anda 2x FULL review

When Dyson drops a new hair tool it’s a pretty jaw dropping event. The company is known for making some of the best hair care devices in the world. And while this one is impressive out of the gate… you might be surprised by what you get… and what it looks like by the end of the day. And let’s just say this is not exactly a blow and go hair tool… trust me when i say you need to do some homework and wade through some tech, to get things working properly here. In this review I am going hands-on with the new Dyson Airwrap Co-anda 2x. It’s kind of a cousin to the AirWrap, which I reviewed a couple years ago.

This kit has been redesigned and upgraded with new attachments that are supposed to be smart. I’ll try out each of the attachments and show you what each one is designed to do. I’ll talk about some of the new technology and improvements that put this device into a much higher priced category. I’ll wrap things up with both the pros and the cons of this hairstyling tool so you can see if it’s right for you. I would like to say thank you to Dyson for loaning me this device for three weeks to test out here in my home. While the company did supply one temporarily it did not have any input into my review.

Dyson Airwrap Co-anda 2x: what you get

Let’s unbox the device first so you can see what you get. This kit is extremely pricey so it’s worth evaluating if each of the attachments will be valuable for you. Selling for $899CAD/$699USD, this is not an inexpensive investment.

Watch the FULL review on my YouTube channel

Everything comes presented in a nice leatherette storage case. The main item is the motorized wand. It’s got a long cord. I think there’s lots of length here which is great and I also noticed there is a swivel on the end to allow it to move more freely. I’m disappointed to see Dyson has also had to include a ginormous box as part of the cord. I’m sure there’s a really great engineering reason for this, but I absolutely detest this from a design perspective. The box really weighs down the cord. I actually had to weigh it just to see how heavy it was, and at nearly 350 g or almost 3/4 pound, it feels like an anchor tethered to the cord. Not to mention, it smashes against the cupboards while I’m using it.

On the plus side of the wand is the power Dyson has put in here. Technically speaking Dyson has re-engineered the motor from the ground up, to what is now called the Hyperdymium™2 motor, It’s Dyson’s fastest and most powerful hair care motor yet. We’ll see in just a sec…

AirWrap Co-anda Attachments

Let’s see the attachments.There are two brush attachments in here:

• The round Volumizing brush 2x, for giving yourself a more bouncy blowout.
• The Anti-Snag Loop Brush 2x, to create smoother styles.
• If you take a closer look at this brush it has interesting bristle ends that really do use little tiny loops that look like the eyes of a needle. My assumption is this allows for better airflow to penetrate closer to the scalp.
• Curling barrels: While my loaner kit only came with one curling wand, if you’re buying one you’ll get two: 1.6″ Co-anda2x™ curling barrel and a 1.2″ Co-anda2x™ curling barrel. My loaner has only the smaller barrel.
• These curling ones are designed to curl your hair using the suction-like Co-anda effect which wraps the hair automatically around the barrel using the airflow.
•  Fast Dryer attachment, which is like a slimmed down Dyson Supersonic Blow dryer.
• Airsmooth 2x: Lastly is a strange U-shaped tool; this is the Airsmooth2x™ attachment which uses high velocity airflow and a clamping mechanism to create smooth finished styles without heated plates. I’m very interested in seeing what this one can do.

Each attachment has a special RFID chip inside which actually allows the attachment to communicate with the wand. This lets the device know precisely which attachment you’re using so it can make adjustments automatically, in terms of the recommended heat and airflow to optimize use.

While you can simply make adjustments to either heat or airflow using the buttons right on the styling wand, if you want to make changes to the presets permanently, you’ll need the MyDyson™ app.

When other caveat I will quickly mention here is that these attachments are not compatible with the original air wrap and vice versa. The RFID chip makes it so that each set of attachments will only work with the model it was sold with.

Set up: app use

Once you unpack your kit there’s not really anything to do but get to work with it. But..My advice to you with this new technology is to actually take a few minutes and read up on the attachments and pair up with the My Dyson app. I may be skipping ahead here but just starting out and using the tool blindly might not deliver the results you’re hoping for…

First, answer the questions about your Hair profile inside the app. This will help the Airwrap Co-anda 2x know how to adjust some of the settings for you, like what’s called i.d. curl, which will take your hair i.d. and apply that to settings for the curling wand. I’ll get to more on this coming up.

Using Dyson Airwrap Co-anda 2x: hair drying

Let’s see what it’s like to actually use this device. I decided to start with the blow dryer attachment.

To attach any of the accessories you just twist them into the top; each one will only fit one way so there’s no worries about getting it backwards.

This attachment is truly a mini Dyson supersonic and the power that I’m able to get from this is quite remarkable. It’s literally blowing me away!… I’ve been a big fan of the Dyson supersonic blow dryer for sometime and I really like how this one mimics it almost exactly, but with, if it’s possible, even more power and airflow, and in a way more compact form.

With this ultra powerful hairdryer attachment I was able to get my hair rough dried in about 4 minutes.

Using Dyson Airwrap Co-anda 2x: styling with brushes

At that point you can either keep going and fully dry and style your hair using a regular brush, or now is the time to swap and one of the other accessories to finish your styling. For my first go I opted for the Anti-Snag Loop Brush 2x.

The brush runs incredibly smoothly through my hair and seem to do a great job both drying and smooth styling it; for the most part, after rough drying, just 1-2 passes with the loop brush finished the job.I found pretty much the same story using the round brush. While for my hair I think a bigger barrel round brush would be better, I did get quite good results from this blowout; it was smooth with a bit of bend and bounce and definitely tangle free.

Curling

Next up I was really excited about getting my hands on the curling wand. I love the idea of this tool but in my previous Air wrap review I only found it marginally effective on my hair.
I’m hopeful that the new technology can improve the styler’s ability to curl hair.

For this first go round I just kind of winged it …essentially choosing small sections of hair and just letting the suction airflow of the device wrap the hair around the barrel.
The curls I was able to get with the Co-anda 2 X curling barrel were quite impressive and seemed very tight.

I definitely got a huge head full of big curls. The curls were not uniform though and were kind of haphazard. I brushed them out to try to soften things but my hair was still a little bit out of control—this is definitley not the same effect I get from a curling iron. I ended up using a straightening iron to try to tame the look a bit. That definitely helped a lot and by the time I was done I had a wearable style for the day.

I ended this session feeling like the curling attachments are kind of hard to control. It seems like the device is going to do what it wants when it comes to curls and I have to admit I was kind of disappointed.

Even more so when by the end of the day most of the curl had fallen out of my hair. I’m usually able to wear a curly style for a couple of days as my hair easily holds hairstyles. But in this case the curls just didn’t seem very long lasting. To track how long lasting they were, I decided to curl my hair again the next day, and as you can see in my video review, I again got a very big and kind of messy head of haphazard curls.
About five hours after I curled my hair I was getting ready to go out to dinner, and you can see the curls had relaxed even more. I don’t know if I’d even call this a wave at this point. It’s mostly straight with just a little bend in the end.

The thing about this isn’t how it looks overall, it’s that using this curling wand attachment is incredibly unpredictable. It’s unpredictable both while you’re using it, and with the kind of style you’re going to end up with, both immediately after finishing, and hours later.

Co-anda curling coaching

That’s when I decided to connect the MyDyson app and try to get more out of the attachment.

The app took into account my hair type and length and in the app it sets up the best timing for you. It also will show you a tutorial about how to properly use the device to curl: Rather than letting the hair wrap by itself around the barrel, it recommends you winding the hair around the barrel as you would a curling iron.

It’s a bit complicated to explain but essentially once you press the button, the wand will cycle through 3 stages on a timer: it’ll start running the airflow to help wind the hair around the barrel; the app allows me seven seconds for this. Then it will use heat and airflow to lock in the curl for nine seconds. At the end it delivers a five second cold shot to help hold the style. The wand will kind of click to mark each of the stages. And if you want to adjust these lengths, you can tweak them inside the app.

Smoothing

Next up I decided to try the Airsmooth2x™ attachment. The premise of this one is fascinating; essentially a flat iron without the hot plates.  The first time I tried it I figured it would be intuitive to use, but I couldn’t actually get it to work at all. Totally user error. I needed to actually do some research to figure out how to use it properly. My video shows it best. Once I understood what to do and how it worked I was actually quite impressed with how well this smoothed my hair.

Smart attachments

For the most part I used each of the attachments with the settings Dyson has pre-selected. Since I only had a limited time with the machine I didn’t get a chance to test out each one with my own custom settings to see what else it could do. Even so, I found the recommended settings seemed to work quite well. But if you know your hair well enough that you might need to make some changes or adjustments to your tool, it is definitely possible for you to adjust from Dyson’s pre-selected options at any time with the buttons on the device, or permanently create your own new settings in the app.

Overall review: Dyson Airwrap Co-anda 2x

Overall, this is a pretty cool and very tech-forward design that let’s you do a lot. But anyone who’s not interested in pairing a styling tool to their phone and using an app alongside it, might find this one is too much. Let’s go over both the pros and the cons of this new multi styler and hairdryer so you can see if it’s right for you.

On the pro side I like that it comes with a good variety of attachments and in a nice storage case.

The new Hyperdymium 2 motor is extremely powerful and the upgrade is very noticeable. It dries my hair extremely quickly but still with all of the gentleness and anti frizz features of the Supersonic.

I think the two brush attachments are outstanding and the new designs do seem to make them both easier to use and improve their ability to give me a smooth soft bouncy blowout.

The all new Airsmooth2x™ attachment is incredibly good at giving me a smooth frizz free look. And once you understand how to use it correctly it’s both easy to use and effective.

You can also easily change heat and airflow any time with the quick buttons, or re-program the presets.

So what are the potential downsides of this machine? I think the curling wand is a huge miss. I found it was very difficult to use, finicky, and even when I followed the exact instructions and temperature settings and recommendations, the curls didn’t last more than a couple of hours.

If you’re a lower maintenance type person, you might not appreciate the technology that’s built in here. While it is possible to use the Dyson Airwrap Co-anda 2x without the app, and without much fuss, you are paying for the smarts here.

There is also definitely a learning curve for some of the tools.

I know some of you are probably also thinking that price is a pretty big downside. Selling for $899CAD/$699USD, this is not a purchase to be made lightly. If you’re willing to do the research to learn how to use the tools and accessories correctly, and willing to practice a bit to get the look you want, this is a remarkably smart hair tool that delivers on its promises.

And if I’m being honest, I loved the hairdryer attachment so much that I would consider buying this tool just for that dryer, and since it comes bundled with the other attachments, it’s actually a pretty good value if you’re considering both a high end Dyson dryer and a multi styler tool. While I disliked the curl wand, the rest of the tools and brushes were aces!

I can absolutely recommend the Dyson Airwrap Co-anda 2x for you and …you can check out my full review of the original Dyson Airwrap, or see why I’m a big fan of the original Dyson Supersonic