If any hair straightener is worth US$500 in a pandemic, it’s the Dyson Corrale

It's got no strings.

July 4, 2020

If any hair straightener is worth US$500 in a pandemic, it’s the Dyson Corrale

Dyson’s third hair care product, the Corrale hair straightener, debuted in mid-March just days — literally, five days — before U.S. cities began initiating shelter-in-place orders. I was initially eager to try it. However, with nowhere to go but my living room, the prospect of doing my hair seemed pointless at best.

Who would even think about buying a US$500 straightener amid a pandemic that has shut down the world and threatened the security of our paychecks?

But now that society is beginning to reopen (even if the move is ill-advised for public health reasons), people’s desire to do their hair at home (and not look like a mole person) may be returning. And the Corrale can certainly help with that.

The Goods

While it is a bit heavy at 1.23 lbs and doesn’t have the longest battery life, the Corrale can go cordless, which is a big advantage if you're, say, a professional who works on a set, or someone who gets annoyed by being tethered to an outlet. Keep in mind, though, it is a bit long, measuring in at 11.5 inches.

The Corrale's other big draw is what Dyson calls its "flexing plates." Since the plates bend around your hair, the Corrale supposedly keeps strands on either end from escaping, mitigating the heat damage that comes from the need to go over the same section multiple times due to flyaways. As a result, it can quickly straighten hair into a sleek look, or create a variety of soft waves, all while dodging that dull, fried look that can sometimes result from burning your locks with excessive straightening.

The Corrale's clean lines and bright colors are definitely attractive, even if there are other "Instagram prettier" rose gold/pastel straighteners out there. Plus, you can't beat the cordless-ness.

The Corrale comes in three color styles: black nickel/fuchsia (pictured above), purple/black (this has a purple body with black interior panel), or black/purple (the reverse).

It also comes with a travel case, charging dock, and a charging cable that plugs in to either the dock or the straightener directly. While you can charge up on the go with the cable, Dyson recommends putting it on the dock to give the 4-cell lithium ion battery the best charge, getting it to 90% in 40 minutes.

Dyson says its "intelligent heat control" system monitors the heat 100 times per second, which supposedly keeps it at a consistent temperature. The Corrale has three heat settings — 330ᵒF, 365ᵒF, 410ᵒF — which display on the OLED panel below the plates. Just choose your heat setting with the "+" or "-" buttons below the panel, and you'll know it's hot and ready to go when it displays a check mark. On the lowest heat setting, for example, this took less than 30 seconds.

Then, you're off to the races.

Sleek ‘n straight

People like to get all fancy with their straighteners these days, using them to create tight curls or loose waves — and the Corrale can do all of that. But first, let’s get down to basics: How well does it straighten hair?

I started with wavy hair that I hadn’t shampooed for two days. That means it had a decent amount of body and texture. When I brushed it out, most of the curl came out, but it also went full poof.

The Corrale quickly brought it under control. I first tried a quick ‘n dirty straightening job, where I didn’t section or do anything methodical, but just straightened the kinky parts I could get to. That worked pretty well! Although the look wasn’t too polished.

Next, I divided my hair into sections and took the task more seriously. Within ten minutes, I had a sleek and pretty much totally straight hairdo, while also retaining some movement on the ends. I used the Corrale in cordless mode, and set it at 310 degrees, which is the lowest heat level. During that time, the battery depleted one third of its charge.

My colleague Brenda Stolyar also had a chance to test out the Corrale and got similar results in terms of the effect, but had a different use experience. Brenda’s hair is much thicker and naturally curlier than mine, and she typically flat irons her hair every day.

When trying out the Corrale, she set it to 410 degrees and within 10 minutes of using the device in cordless mode, got a low-power warning. However, after using the Corrale for a few days, she noticed that her hair felt and looked great. Brenda's hairdresser even commented on her social media photos and videos, saying that her hair looked healthy and shiny! An unsolicited compliment from an expert? That’s a true endorsement.

The important thing to know about using the Corrale is that you have to be slightly more conscious of what you’re doing with it, and not just straighten on autopilot. That’s why it focuses on lower heat with flexible manganese copper alloy plates that Dyson says conduct and retain heat better (whereas other straighteners cool down faster the longer you use them). The flexible plates are also designed to require fewer passes through your hair, so the amount of time you’re exposing your locks to high heat will supposedly get cut down.

While I was straightening, I found myself re-ironing sections, but then realized — I really didn’t have to go over a section more than once. My hair was already super hot and super straight. I also tried straightening bigger chunks than I would normally, and found a sweet spot for the size of a section of hair — about an inch for me, though this will differ depending on your hair's thickness and kink — that only needed one pass to make it smooth from root to end.

Cool Girl Waves

Thanks to the ingenuity of beauty YouTubers, using a straightener to curl your hair is all the rage. The advantage is that straighteners can create more understated waves than curlers can, which lets you get texture without accidentally turning yourself into a southern belle.

On its YouTube page, Dyson specifically touts the Corrale's ability to get in on the wave-making trend in a series of tutorials. By turning the straightener 360 degrees, it says you can create full, but slightly loose curls that, when tousled, result in a beach hair look. I tried out this “subtle waves” look, which is basically beach hair but slightly straighter. I think of it as cool-girl style: Your hair is straight and under control, but strategically messy, full, and sexy.

To get the look, you section your head and work on the same size pieces as you would with straightening. But, instead of holding the straightener down from root to tip, you turn the straightener back and forth 180 degrees as you go along.

My hair is naturally wavy, but the fun waves don’t usually start until halfway down. Using Dyson's loose waves method, I can put some kink in my hair higher up, which gives it more lift and a relaxed body. All told, the process took about 15 minutes, and the battery held up for the duration.

Cool girl waves: achieved.

Oh, these perfectly tousled waves? They just occurred naturally after having a chill day at the beach. I'm a cool girl.

The Competition

The Corrale has no direct competition because it is twice as expensive as the other highest-end straighteners out there. What's more, most of the best-loved and highest-rated straighteners go for around US$100.

But if you were to compare the Corrale to other straighteners, there are a few features you'd look for: cordless mode, heat protection, and "high tech" plates and temperature control.

Most of the other cordless hair straighteners are designed as travel or on-the-go straighteners, not your everyday workhorse. They also fall into the budget straightener category of around or under US$50, so they don't really compare.

In terms of heat protection and "high tech" features, the GHD Platinum+ gets consistently ranked as one of the top hair straighteners — and has the honor of the second-highest price straightener, behind the Corrale, at US$249. The price and technology together make it Dyson's biggest competition.

The GHD model is not cordless, which is one big difference. However, it does claim to have its own "predictive" heat technology, which sounds similar to Dyson's "intelligent heat control" system, and will only go up to 365 degrees to protect your hair from burning.

The GHD also has "floating" plates, which are a similar idea to the Corrale's "flexing" plates, in that they're designed to grip hair better and keep the ends from escaping. However, Dyson differentiates its plates as flexible throughout, not just tilting to one side or the other like other flexible plates do.

The Verdict

There’s a lot stacked against the Corrale, especially right now. Its price tag is high even for non-pandemic times, and then there’s the fact that skyrocketing unemployment puts “super fancy hair straightener” low on the list of priorities.

Dyson’s other haircare products also had similarly astronomical price points compared to competitors. That didn’t stop them from flying off the shelves and selling out soon after launch. The Corrale has not seen a similar craze (thanks, pandemic!). But if you expect to return to straightening your hair regularly, want to invest in saving your hair from scorching hot irons, and want a straightener that can do double duty as a curler, the Corrale could be a splurge you actually use every day.

So, if you’ve got half a "G" burning a hole in your sweatpants pocket, and you’re trying to make your debut night back out on the town with a really well-coiffed ‘do, by all means consider the Corrale. It’s pricey; it’s frivolous for the moment, but — like most Dyson offerings — it’s a great product.

Pandemic splurges: so hot right now.