The Shark FlexStyle is the multi-styler that suits the widest range of people, and the reason has nothing to do with beating Dyson. It doesn’t beat Dyson on curls. What it does is bend in the middle, so the same machine that wraps a curl for you also straightens out into a real hair dryer with real airflow. That matters because of a question nobody asks first: how often do you truly reach for a curling barrel, versus just wanting your hair dry and smooth in fifteen minutes? If the honest answer is a few times a month, the FlexStyle is the buy. If the honest answer is never, none of these three tools is worth your money.
The verdict, up front
You blow dry often and curl sometimes, and you want one tool on the counter instead of two
What you want is the smooth round-brush blowout, and the self-wrapping curl was never the point
Curls are the whole reason you’re shopping, you already own a dryer you like, and you style several times a week
What the Shark FlexStyle actually is
Two tools sharing one motor. The barrel hinges near the middle, and where it points decides which tool you’re holding. Straight, with the concentrator on, it’s a hair dryer with enough airflow to dry a full head. Folded to ninety degrees with a brush or a curling barrel on the end, it becomes an air styler, where moving air does the job a hot barrel usually does.
The curling attachments run on the Coanda effect, which sounds like a marketing word and isn’t. Fast-moving air running along a curved surface clings to it instead of shooting off, dragging the surrounding air with it. Cut slots into a barrel, push air out of them, hold a damp section nearby, and the airflow winds the hair onto the barrel on its own. No clamp, no wrist twist, no burned knuckle.
What Coanda does not do is hold a curl. Wrapping is the easy part. The shape gets set by drying that wrapped section and then cooling it, the way a roller set works, so the result depends on how damp the hair was going on and how long it stayed there. Coanda also does nothing about heat damage; that’s the temperature sensor, a separate system keeping the air below the point where a flat iron cooks the cuticle. Two features, one breath, and people conflate them constantly.
Attachments are the real cost driver. The FlexStyle isn’t one product so much as one handle with several boxes built around it, and the gap between the cheapest listing and the priciest is the barrels and the diffuser, not the machine. Bought separately later, a single curling attachment runs a real fraction of a whole cheaper styler. Decide what you’ll use before you pick a kit.
Does it actually work?
For drying and smoothing, yes, and that’s where it earns its keep. The oval brush gives a legitimate at-home blowout, the soft, round, full finish you’d otherwise pay a salon for, and the same handle then converts to a dryer, so it replaces two things instead of sitting beside them. That holds even for someone who touches the curling barrels twice a year.
For curls, the answer is mixed. The wrap works, the curl forms, and on fine to medium hair with a real cool-down it looks lovely. Coarse, resistant, or heavy hair is another story: the airflow struggles to lift the section, and what forms tends to fall by mid-afternoon. That’s physics more than it’s Shark. Air styling is a wet set, and wet sets drop on hair that resists holding a shape. If hard-set curls are the goal, no air styler is the right purchase.
Against the Airwrap, the split is cleaner than either brand admits. The FlexStyle converts into a proper standalone dryer, which the Airwrap does not; Dyson’s smoothing attachment is a finishing tool, not a replacement for the machine you dry with. The Airwrap wins on airflow control and barrels: finer command over speed and heat, a more confident grab on the wrap, and curl barrels that alternate direction so you aren’t swapping heads between sides of your head. Both are true at once, and which matters more is a question about your routine. Our hair salon glossary covers the rest of the vocabulary.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Converts into a real hair dryer, so it replaces two tools rather than joining them
- Auto-wrap barrels curl without clamping or wrist work
- Regulated temperature runs cooler than a flat iron
- The oval brush blowout is close to salon quality at home
- Well under half the price of the Airwrap for most of the function
Cons
- About $250 before you add a single extra attachment
- Curls drop faster than a hot barrel, especially on coarse or resistant hair
- Only works on damp hair, so it can’t rescue a second-day curl
- Useless below chin length, and slow on very thick hair
- Less airflow control than Dyson, and add-on attachments are expensive
Who it’s for
Buy it if
Buy it if you dry your hair most days and style it some days. That’s the profile it was built around: shoulder-length to long hair, fine through medium density, someone who wants a smooth finish on a Tuesday and a soft bend on a Saturday without a dryer, a round brush, and a curling iron all fighting for the same outlet. If you’ve eyed an Airwrap for a year and can’t make the math work, this is the affordable version of that idea.
Skip it if
Skip it when your hair is short. Above the chin there’s nothing for the barrels to grab; a pixie wants a concentrator and a comb, not a multi-styler. Skip this one if you air-dry by choice and wear your natural texture; you’d be solving a problem you don’t have, and a dryer with a diffuser costs a third as much. Skip it too when your standing appointment is a silk press, since air styling gets you soft and full, not glass-flat.
How to use it
Rough dry to about eighty percent first. These tools style wet-to-damp hair, not dry hair, which surprises people who assumed it worked like a curling iron. Soaking wet, and the barrel spends its run evaporating water. Bone dry, and the section won’t wrap: it flicks around, tangles, and frizzes. Damp and cool to the touch is the window.
Work in sections about two inches wide. Wider and the airflow can’t lift the whole piece onto the barrel, which is what people mean when they say it “doesn’t grab my hair.” That’s section size, not the machine.
Use a heat protectant even though it runs cooler. Lower heat over longer exposure is still heat. Our heat protectant guide covers what to look for; a light heat protectant spray on damp hair does it.
Hit the cool shot and then leave it alone. Warm hair is soft hair, and a curl dropped or brushed while it’s still warm is a curl you won’t see by lunch. Slide the section off, pin it, let it go cold.
Clean the filter often. Airflow is the whole mechanism, and a dusty screen weakens a good styler so gradually that you blame the tool.
The dupe: Wavytalk 5-in-1 Blowout Brush
The Wavytalk 5-in-1 Blowout Brush costs about a fifth of what the Shark does and gets you most of the outcome, provided the outcome you want is a blowout. A hot air brush is heat, tension, and airflow through a bristled barrel, and a blowout was never more complicated than that. Smooth, lifted at the root, soft at the ends. It’s what people are chasing far more often than the ringlets.
What you don’t get is the Coanda wrap. There’s no self-winding; the wands in the kit are wands, and you do the wrapping by hand the way you would with any curling iron. You don’t get a standalone dryer either, since a brush with a motor in it can’t dry a full head at a speed you’d tolerate. Build quality is what a sixth of the price buys.
Buy it as the test case. Live with a hot air brush for two months, and if you never once wish it curled, you saved the difference and learned something true about your routine.
The splurge: Dyson Airwrap i.d. Multi-Styler
The Dyson Airwrap i.d. Multi-Styler costs about two and a half times what the FlexStyle does, and it is the better styler. Say that plainly, then say what it buys: finer airflow and heat control, a quicker Coanda grab, and curl barrels that reverse direction on their own so you stop swapping heads halfway around your head. The i.d. adds app-driven routines built around your hair type and length, which is either useful guidance or a solved problem, depending on how well you know your hair.
What the Airwrap does not buy you is a dryer. Dyson sells drying attachments, but it isn’t built to replace the machine you dry with, so if you don’t already own a dryer you like, this purchase costs more than the sticker. That’s the whole case for the FlexStyle.
Splurge here if curls are the real reason you’re shopping, you style several times a week, and your dryer situation is sorted. Otherwise you’re paying double for control you may not use.
FAQ
Can you use a Shark FlexStyle on dry hair?
Not for curling. The barrels need damp hair to wrap and to set, and dry hair tangles instead of winding on. The brush attachments can smooth dry hair a little, but the styling it’s sold for happens between damp and fully dry.
Does it work on thick or curly hair?
It works, but slowly, and you’ll want smaller sections than the instructions suggest. Density limits it more than texture: a lot of hair means a lot of water to move, and curls on coarse strands loosen faster. Very tight textures are better served by a diffuser than by the wrapping barrels.
Do you still need a separate hair dryer?
No, and that’s the point of it. Straightened out with the concentrator it’s a functional dryer, which is the main practical reason to pick it over an Airwrap. If you’d rather keep a dedicated dryer anyway, a dryer with a diffuser covers the days you don’t style.
Is the Airwrap worth twice the price?
Only if you curl often. The extra money buys airflow control and better barrels, both of which show up on hair you style several times a week and neither of which you’ll notice on hair you dry and go. Dry five days a week and curl twice a month, and the Shark gives you more per dollar.
Why do the curls fall out by the afternoon?
Usually because the section went on too wet, came off too warm, or got brushed before it cooled. A set has to cool in shape. Pin each curl and let it go cold.
How we picked
A dupe has to work by the same mechanism, so the Wavytalk qualified on heat plus airflow plus tension through a brush, the thing that produces the FlexStyle’s blowout, and we said where it stops: no Coanda, no self-wrapping, no drying. The Airwrap qualified as a splurge because it does what the Shark can’t, namely finer airflow control and reversing barrels, rather than costing more for the same result. We weighted length, density, and styling frequency over brand claims about heat.
Bottom line
Buy the Shark FlexStyle if you dry your hair often and curl it sometimes, because the pivot that turns it into a dryer is what makes a styling tool worth its counter space on the days you aren’t styling. Dupe it with the Wavytalk blowout brush if the smooth round-brush finish is the whole ambition. Splurge on the Dyson Airwrap i.d. only when curls are the point and your dryer is already handled.
It loses a point for curls that don’t hold on coarse hair and for attachments that keep costing money after the box is open. More verdicts live in our Buy, Dupe, or Splurge archive, and the rest of our styling coverage sits in Hair.
