As I returned home from work one evening, a parcel lay at my doorstep. I open the door, scurry in, and shred the box open in wide-eyed excitement – I’m 9 again, and it’s Christmas…

As I realised I hadn’t actually ordered anything, I see that it’s my other half’s new hair dryer – I’m 27 again, and I’m miserable…

I glumly push the destroyed packaging and contents out of my reach when I see that it’s a hair dryer (another one) and on the box, it tells me that it’s ‘50% quieter compared to other leading hairdryers’.

A bold claim. A bold claim that has a footnote. Could that be ‘*that are 50% louder‘, or ‘*when this model is switched off‘? No. It reiterates the sheer swaggering arrogance of their statement by repeating it.

I’m not overly familiar of these machines, but as of late, the current hair dryer in my apartment has taken precedence over my alarm clock. My other half will tip-toe across the room of a morning, gently plug in her hair dryer, and promptly blast all the air out of the room through a newly formed hole in the wall. It would be a more relaxing way to wake up if someone wheels my sleeping body to a field of bubble wrap and fireworks, then ordered a Harrier Jump Jet to lift a herd of elephants 2 feet above my face…then blow the whole thing up for good measure, and as bits of aeronautical engineering rain down upon me the bubble wrap and fireworks pop, clap, and explode everywhere.

Yes. It’s annoying. So when this new hair-drying robot kicks my door down and screams at me that it’s ‘50% quieter,’ it’s as if God himself sent it down for me and me alone.

As first impressions count in everything that makes up life, I had high hopes for this. It was sturdy and very well made. It wasn’t too heavy which is a factor when one has insanely wet hair and must hold the hair dryer for a long-ass time, and the buttons had a satisfying click to register it’s on-ness or off-ness and other settings. I liked it.

I dug deeper inside the box and found the fishtail attachment to streamline the air blasting out along some boring documents. Right, I thought, time to test out the sound. Now as this was shipped from America, so either the hair dryers over there have the same decibel level as a glass moon crashing into a cymbal factory, or Revlon has deceived me. As I flicked the switch to activate the machine, an image popped into my mind (below), along with the racing winds of a lie. As if the board of directors from Revlon were laughing violently at me, and I was caught in their breathstream.

As the winds of deceit blew through my head, I half expected to see some scientists with clipboards deciding on how to streamline my face. I was positive they use fans like this to design cars. The sound was a magnificently mechanical and constant booming drone, laced with lies and drivel. It cut through me.
As I don’t use hair dryers often, I couldn’t ascertain wether or not this generator-sounding warm air propulsion unit was 50% quieter than other leading brands or not. Well, luckily for me, I have an ‘other leading brand’ hair dryer. Boom!

Up there on the right is the TRESemmé 2200 Smooth. Lighter (in weight), thinner, smoother, sleeker, cooler, and with more plastic,  just like the girlfriend you wished you had.

Costing roughly the same price as the Revlon LoudC*nt, the TRESemmé feels a lot cheaper, but maybe that’s just the weight coming in to play; such as heavier modern mobile phones giving us the false sense that it’s an expensive and luxury item. Boy, is it nice and light compared to the Revlon.

I downloaded a decibel meter on my nice and heavy phone and recorded both hair dryers, keeping the phone in the same area with each unit.

Now, I’m no scientist, and this wasn’t the most precise test, but that Revlon QuietPro is definitely not 50% quieter compared to other leading brands*

* Compared to other leading brands.

Both the Revlon and the TRESemmé peak at the same level on this test. In fact, in some wavelength tests I conducted, the TRESemmé seemed at least 20% quieter.

I was hoping to do some proper tests using my home studio gear, clamps, stands, precision measuring, and the like, but my laptop with all of my programs died and the replacement I have has nothing.

Still, even using my own ears it was easy to tell that the Revlon QuietPro was the same, if not louder in volume than the other one. A complete farce of a product.

After my lengthy test, I’ve decided that it’s shit. Regardless of what I said earlier on, it’s too heavy and I hate it. The TRESemmé is a lot better due to its lightweight construction and lack of maddening falsehoods. I can’t help but feel buggered over by Revlon. Throwing the money onto a functioning aircraft carrier made from live, screaming hyenas and then paying for an airstrike to sink it would have proved a better use of finances, not to mention a whole lot quieter.