CONFU Hair Dryer with Diffuser: How to Dry Curls, and What the Concentrator and Comb Are For

A hair dryer on its own does one thing: it pushes a narrow, fast stream of warm air. That is perfect for straight hair and bad for curls, because the stream separates each curl into frizz before it has a chance to dry in shape. A diffuser fixes that with no electronics at all. It is a bowl with holes and fingers that slows the air and spreads it over a wide area.

Ten of the eleven CONFU dryers ship with a diffuser, starting at $29.44. This guide covers which of them suit which curls, the settings to use, the technique step by step, and what the other two attachments, the concentrator and the comb nozzle, are for. For help choosing between all the models, see the buying guide.

What does a diffuser do on a hair dryer?

A diffuser spreads the dryer's air over a wide bowl, 5.35 inches across on our 1875W Ionic, so it reaches the hair as a slow, even flow. The curl dries in the shape it had when wet, without being pulled straight or blown into frizz.

Three parts do the work. The bowl holds a section of hair so the curls sit bunched up, the way they will sit when dry. The vents across its face break one jet into dozens of small ones. The fingers stand up from the bowl, lift the hair at the roots and let warm air reach the scalp, which is where curly hair stays wet longest.

Why curls need this is a matter of structure. Dermatologists describe curly hair as the more fragile type:

Thick, curly hair is more prone to breakage and dryness than other hair types.

Dry, breakable hair is exactly the hair you do not want to rough up with a concentrated jet. The diffuser lets you use the dryer at all. Many people with curls go without one for years because a dryer has always meant frizz, and the difference is the attachment.

CONFU dryers that include a diffuser

Here are the dryers with a diffuser in the box, with the two things that matter most for diffusing: how low the airflow goes, and how much the dryer weighs, because diffusing is slower than blow-drying and you hold the dryer longer.

One dryer in the range does not include a diffuser: the Foldable 1875, which ships with a concentrator only. If you have curls, skip it.

For tight curls and coils

Tight curls want a deep bowl and low airflow. The 1875W Ionic is our pick. Its diffuser is the largest in the range, and its slider is stepless, so an 1875-watt dryer can run at a gentle flow that a two-speed switch cannot reach. It costs from $30.39 and weighs 1.5 lb. The Pro Salon adds a comb nozzle for days when you want to stretch the hair instead.

• 10dryers with a diffuser
• 2of them with stepless airflow
• 2of them fold for travel

For waves and loose curls

Looser patterns need less bowl and forgive more airflow. The 1600W Ionic has a dial for stepless speed and costs from $29.44. The Plasma weighs 0.74 lb for the body alone, which helps over a long session. Among the high-speed models, a buyer of the F4 reports that its diffuser works on a daughter's curls without frizz.

For travel

The Foldable Diffuser Hair Dryer was built for one job: taking a diffuser on a trip. It folds in half, weighs 1.08 lb and costs $29.99. Buyers with long curly hair are its happiest reviewers:

The diffuser works excellent for defining curls without frizz, and the concentrator helps direct the airflow when I want a smoother look.

It has limits. There are two heat options, cool and hot, with no warm step between, and one buyer who likes the dryer calls its diffuser worthless. Diffusers are personal, and a curl pattern that one bowl holds well can slip out of another.

• 

  CONFU 1875W Ionic Hair Dryer

  AC motor · Speed slider · Deep diffuser

  (4.1) 154 ratings

  from $30.39 in 2 colors

• 

  CONFU Foldable Diffuser Hair Dryer

  Foldable · 1.08 lb · Diffuser included

  (4.2) 51 ratings

  $29.99 in blue

• 

  CONFU 1600W Ionic Hair Dryer

  Speed dial · Diffuser included · ALCI plug

  (4.4) 7,692 ratings

  from $29.44 in 8 colors

Are magnetic diffusers as good as push-on ones?

For convenience, yes. For holding tight curls, not always. The 2 CONFU dryers with magnetic attachments, the K13 and the F11, use small diffusers sized to their small heads, and a shallow bowl holds less hair.

The magnets themselves are the good part. The attachment snaps on in any rotation, comes off with one hand, and does not have the plastic tabs that wear out on twist-lock nozzles. A long-time buyer of the F11 called this out specifically:

Magnetic attachment of accessories and filter cover - much easier than plastic twist & lock systems which seem to break over time in my experience.

The bowl is the limit. A high-speed dryer has a narrow outlet, and its diffuser is correspondingly small. One buyer who diffuses curly hair was blunt about the F11's:

The diffuser finger thingies are very short and do not control the air.

It is the most useful sentence a curly-haired buyer can read before choosing. If your curls are loose or your hair is short, a magnetic diffuser will do the job and the dryer will be a pleasure to hold. If your curls are tight or your hair is long and dense, choose a model with a full-size diffuser and accept the extra weight.

What heat and speed should you use with a diffuser?

Use low speed and low to medium heat. On a CONFU dryer with 2 speeds that means the first position, and on a model with a dial or slider it means somewhere in the lower third.

Low speed matters more than low heat. Fast air is what breaks a curl apart, even through a diffuser. Heat is the part dermatologists warn about, and their advice is short:

Use the lowest heat setting.

There is a balance to find, because low heat with low air takes a long time, and hair that stays wet for an hour is not being done a favor either. A laboratory study of hair tresses in the Annals of Dermatology compared drying at several temperatures with drying at room temperature, and its authors concluded:

using a hair dryer at a distance of 15 cm with continuous motion causes less damage than drying hair naturally

That was straight hair in a lab, dried without a diffuser, so do not read it as a rule for curls. What carries over is the principle: moderate heat, some distance, and a dryer that keeps moving. A diffuser builds the distance in, because the bowl holds the hot outlet several centimeters from the hair.

Treat that table as a starting point. If your hair is fully dry in under ten minutes and feels soft, you can leave the settings alone. If it feels rough or looks dull, go down one heat step before you change anything else.

How to diffuse curls, step by step

The method is the same on every dryer. What changes is how long each section takes. Start with hair that is wet but not dripping.

1. Blot, do not rub. Press the water out with a towel or a cotton T-shirt. Rubbing roughs up the cuticle and starts the frizz before the dryer is even on.

2. Apply your products to wet hair. Leave-in conditioner first, then whatever you use for hold. Scrunch them in with open hands.

3. Fit the diffuser and set the dryer low. Low speed, warm heat. Switch the dryer on away from your head and bring it in.

4. Hover first. Hold the diffuser a few inches from the hair and move it slowly around your head for a minute or two, without touching. This sets the outer layer so it does not frizz when you start to cup.

5. Cup a section and lift. Tilt your head, gather a section of hair into the bowl from the ends and raise it toward the scalp. Hold it there for 20 to 30 seconds. Do not move the dryer around inside the section.

6. Switch off, move, switch on. Lower the dryer, move to the next section, then start again. Many people click the dryer to its cool setting between sections instead of turning it off.

7. Dry the roots last. Slide the fingers of the diffuser against the scalp and lift. This is where volume comes from.

8. Stop at about 90 percent. Let the last of the water leave on its own, and keep your hands out of your hair until it is fully dry.

The first two steps come straight from dermatologists' advice on wet hair. The American Academy of Dermatology's version is one line:

Wrap your hair in a towel to absorb the water.

Brushing is the other thing to leave out. The same organization's page on curly hair is explicit:

Avoid brushing your hair while it is dry to prevent your hair from breaking and frizzing.

Upside down or upright

Both work. Diffusing with your head tipped forward or to the side gives more lift at the roots, because gravity pulls the hair away from the scalp while it dries. Upright gives a flatter, more controlled shape. Most people do the roots tipped over and the lengths upright.

One caution if you tip over. The back of a hair dryer is where air goes in, and loose hair hanging near it can be drawn toward the intake. A buyer of our Plasma dryer with mid-back hair had exactly this problem:

Especially do not advise if head is upside down to use with diffuser!

Keep the rear of the dryer pointed away from the lengths you are not drying, or clip them up. Models with a removable rear cover, such as the 1600W Ionic, have a mesh across the intake for this reason. A buyer of the K13 with a lot of long hair found the fix after the fact: the dryer began to whine and smell, the self-cleaning cycle was run, and it worked again.

Diffusing takes longer, so weight matters

Diffusing is slower than blow-drying by design, because the air is slower. Dense or long curls take longest.

That is why weight belongs in the decision. Holding a dryer above your head through a long session is a different task from a quick blowout. Our dryers with a diffuser range from 0.74 lb to 2.49 lb. If your sessions are long, the lighter half of the table at the top of this guide is where to look, even if it means a smaller bowl.

• Plasma0.74 lb
• F110.81 lb
• F40.82 lb
• K130.95 lb
• Foldable Diffuser1.08 lb
• Ionic 18751.5 lb
• Pro Salon1.8 lb
• Ionic 16001.81 lb
• AC Motor 18752.36 lb
• Salon Ionic2.49 lb

You can shorten the session without raising the heat. Blot more water out before you start. Hover for longer before you cup. Dry the roots fully and let the last 10 percent of the lengths air-dry. And clean the filter: a dryer with a clogged intake moves less air and takes longer at any setting.

Products, heat protectant and short curls

A diffuser changes how the air arrives. It does not change what heat does to hair, so the usual protection still applies. The dermatologists' advice names both halves:

Use low or medium heat settings and a product to protect your hair from the heat.

Apply a heat protectant to wet hair along with your leave-in, before the dryer is on. One of our buyers, drying thin, wavy hair with the Plasma, mentions using a leave-in conditioner and a heat protectant with every dryer, and still noticing how much more moisture the hair kept with a gentler airflow.

Short curls need a small change in method. There is not enough length to gather into the bowl, so skip the cupping step. Hover the diffuser close to the head, then press its fingers lightly against the scalp and hold. Work around the head in six or eight positions. A shallow diffuser, such as the magnetic ones on the K13 and the F11, is at no disadvantage here, and those dryers are the lightest to hold.

If your hair is color-treated or bleached, stay on the warm setting and use the cool setting freely.

The concentrator: for smooth, straight styles

The concentrator is the flat nozzle that every CONFU dryer includes. It does the opposite of a diffuser: it narrows the air into a blade so you can aim it at one section and nowhere else.

Use it when you want hair smooth. Point it down the hair shaft, from roots toward ends, so the air lays the cuticle flat. With a round brush, the concentrator keeps the heat on the hair wrapped around the brush and off your scalp. The AC Motor 1875 comes with two of them, a narrow one for brush work and a wide one for rough-drying.

Do not press the nozzle against the hair. The outlet gets hot, and it should not be touched during use. A finger's width of air between nozzle and brush is enough.

The comb nozzle: for stretching thick hair

A comb nozzle is a concentrator with teeth. As you draw it through a section, the teeth hold the hair under light tension while the air dries it, which stretches curls and coils into a blown-out shape without a separate brush.

Two CONFU dryers include one: Pro Salon and Salon Ionic. It is the attachment to use if you want to stretch your hair before braiding or flat-ironing, or if detangling with one hand and drying with the other has never worked for you. A buyer of the Pro Salon noted that the comb stays on, which had been a problem with other dryers.

Work in small sections, start at the ends and move up toward the roots as the tangles clear. Hair is at its weakest when wet, so let the comb glide and stop if it catches.

Five mistakes that cause frizz

• Too much speed. If the curls move in the bowl, the air is too fast. Drop a step, or on a dial model roll it down.
• Touching the hair while it dries. Every time fingers go through a half-dry curl, it separates. Scrunch only when the hair is fully dry.
• Moving the dryer around inside a section. Cup, hold still, release. Circling the bowl against the hair rubs the curls against each other.
• Rubbing with a towel first. The frizz is made before the dryer is switched on.
• A blocked filter. Less air through the dryer means more heat for the same drying, and a hotter outlet.

Heat is the common thread. The dermatologists' line on it applies to every hair type:

No matter your hair type, excessive heat can cause damage.

Looking after the attachments

Diffusers collect product. Mousse, gel and leave-in conditioner dry onto the bowl and the fingers, and in time they block the vents. Wash the diffuser in warm water with a drop of shampoo every couple of weeks, rinse it and let it dry fully before it goes back on the dryer. Never run the dryer with a wet attachment.

Push-on attachments should seat with a firm press. If one feels loose, check that it is the nozzle that came with that dryer: outlets differ in diameter between models, and a diffuser from one dryer will not necessarily fit another. Magnetic attachments need nothing but a wipe.

The dryer's own filter matters more than any attachment. On the models with a removable rear cover, twist it off and brush the lint from the mesh. On the high-speed models, run the self-cleaning cycle, which spins the motor in reverse to blow dust out: 10 seconds on the K13.

Which one to buy

If curls are the reason you are buying a dryer, decide on the diffuser first and the dryer second.

• Tight curls, coils, long sessions at home: CONFU 1875W Ionic Hair Dryer, for the deep diffuser and the stepless slider.
• Waves and loose curls on a budget: CONFU 1600W Ionic Hair Dryer, from $29.44, with a speed dial.
• Curls on the road: CONFU Foldable Diffuser Hair Dryer, the folding dryer that packs a diffuser.
• Tired arms: CONFU Plasma Ionic Hair Dryer, the lightest body in the range.
• Curls some days, a stretched blowout on others: CONFU Pro Salon Ionic Hair Dryer, with a diffuser, a concentrator and a comb nozzle.

Whichever you choose, give the technique three or four washes before you judge it. Diffusing is a skill, and the second week looks better than the first.

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