Hot tools cause more breakage and frizz and damage hair right at the root, slowing down overall growth. Most of us don’t want to give up on our styling tools, which is why “cold drying” has become very popular.
Cold drying primarily uses the cold blast setting on a blow dryer to style your hair without high heat, but is it any better for your hair?
Should You Use a Cold Hair Dryer Every Day?
Any electrical tool on your hair, whether hot or cold, will damage your hair. However, using the cold air on your blow dryer is not as damaging as the hot setting. Every time you use your hair dryer, there will be damage, so you still want to limit using a blow dryer to only 2-3 times per week.
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Does the Cold Setting on a Hair Dryer Damage Your Hair?
The damage from using a blow dryer has little to do with the temperature.
Yes, a high heat setting on our blowdryer will be much more damaging; a cold blow dryer isn’t completely damage-free, because hair is the most vulnerable when it is wet.
When your hair shaft is wet, it is incredibly delicate and will suffer breakage and damage.
Using a blow dryer at any temperature will cause your hair to flow wildly and blow under pressure, making it tangle and wrap around itself. The constant stress from using a blow dryer on wet hair will lead to more breakage and can even cause the more delicate strands of your hair to break off.
So, while cold hair is less likely to fry your hair, it will still cause damage.
Can Cold Hair Drying Cause Frizziness?
Frizz happens because there is not enough moisture in your hair.
Moisture helps keep your hair smooth, and when there isn’t enough of it, all of the little hairs and split ends found in your hair strands will start to stick straight out. Frizz also happens mostly in areas prone to high humidity, which will pull moisture out of your hair.
Yes, using a cold hair dryer can cause frizz on your hair because it has little to do with the temperature and everything to do with the moisture in your hair.
However, this doesn’t mean you can’t use a blow dryer in a cold setting without getting frizzy. The main trick to prevent frizz is never using a blow dryer when your hair is soaking wet.
The blow dryer will only pull out this moisture before it has had time to be absorbed into your hair.
To prevent frizz while using a cold blow dryer, wait until your hair is about 75% dry. Let your hair naturally dry for as long as you can. This way, the moisture, and your leave-in conditioning products have had time to work their way into your hair shaft.
How Much Hair Drying Is TOO Much?
Every time you use your hair dryer, there will be damage no matter how much you use it. However, you still want to limit using a blow dryer to only 2-3 times per week.
It is considered too much to use a hair dryer on your wet hair every single day. The good news is that there are ways to reduce the number of times you will need to blow dry your hair.
First, you want to limit the number of times you wash your hair per week. If you only wash your hair at most three times a week, you won’t have to dry your hair with a blow dryer any more than that.
Next, try to get comfortable with allowing your hair to air dry. While this may not always give you the result you want, the more times, you allow your hair to absorb moisture without drying it out with a styling tool, the better.
Are There Hair Dryers with Only Cold Settings?
You may be disappointed to learn that there are no blow dryers that only specifically use cold air. This doesn’t mean that you can’t find a blow dryer that is exactly what you need.
There are top brands of hair dryers that feature cold air settings. Recently, a huge influx of hair tool brands have been expanding their blow dryers to offer many different settings for cold air.
You will often find blow dryers with only one cold blast setting. This means that you will not be able to control how high the fan blows or even the exact temperature of the air.
These days high-end brands have really caught on to the trend of drying your hair with cold settings.
Nowadays, you can find a great blow dryer that not only has cold blast settings but also allows you to set your desired temperature and how high the air will blow. This allows you to completely customize your hair drying experience to be perfectly tailored to your hair needs.
Can Cold Hair Dryers Prevent Damage?
As mentioned, using a cold hair dryer on your hair instead of a heat blast will still damage your hair.
So no, a cold hair dryer will not prevent damage, but it may still reduce the damage done to your hair. This is especially true if you use your blow dryer to style your hair almost daily.
The good news is that overall, a cold hair dryer setting is up to 60% less damaging than a hot air dryer. While both settings can cause your hair to tangle and dry out, using a cold setting won’t be as severe as damage.
This is because not only are you damaging your hair with the actual action of blowing your hair, but the heat is doing far more damage.
Hair needs a couple of things to be considered to be healthy.
Most importantly, your hair needs the natural oils produced by your scalp to keep the hair soft and moisturizing. Hot hair dryers will completely dry out these oils and pull them from the hair shaft, leaving your hair feeling dry and dull.
You won’t get the same damage from using a cold hair dryer. So, a cold hair dryer won’t prevent damage, but it won’t be as bad.
Do All Hair Dryers Have a Cold Setting?
No, not all hair dryers come standard with a cold setting.
Many older models of hair dryers were not made with this feature and only offered a hot setting with a couple of different levels.
However, newer hair dryers made in the past decade will more than likely come with a cold air setting. This can often be found right on the handle of the blow dryer, where with just a pull of the trigger, the blow dryer will automatically switch from hot to cold air.
It can get a little annoying with older models like this because you will have to hold down the cold blast button the whole time you use it.
Newer and more high-end brands have started adding the cold blast directly to the main settings, which gives you much more control.
Final Thoughts
While chances of finding ways to style your hair with zero damage are fairly low, there are plenty of ways to help reduce the amount of damage done to your hair overall.
The biggest tip we can give you is always to keep your hair moisturized. Not only will this reduce the risk of frizz but it will also improve your hair’s health in the long run.
So, don’t give up on your cold air blow dryer yet! Take care.
Reference Links:
Can You Get Heat Damage From Blow Drying Your Hair With Cold Air?