• by Thom Forbes  @tforbes, April 28, 2016

We’ll save the price for later — suffice to say that this is the sort of thing that the Chobani nouvelles might covet if they weren’t so darn grounded — but Sir James Dyson is looking to do for the human head what he did for the shag rug. The Dyson Supersonic hair dryer is, simply and elegantly, “the hair dryer re-thought.” 

Dyson introduced his air-manipulation company’s latest technology to journalists and “beauty insiders” at a launch event in Tokyo yesterday. Snippets of the Jobsian reveal are captured here. Another video describes the technology within the device, including a “motor that sits comfortably in the handle.”

“Why, you might reasonably ask, would a vacuum company care that much about your hair? It's simple, according to James Dyson, the company's founder: ‘Hair-dryers can be heavy, inefficient, and make a racket,’” writes Julianne Carell for Glamour. “And the more obvious: Women really care about their hair. ‘We realized they can also cause extreme heat damage to hair,’ he said in a press release.” 

“There has been zero innovation in this market for over 60 years,” the 68-yead-old knighted billionaire told the New York Times’ Elizabeth Paton during an interview in his office in the English countryside recently. “Millions of people use contraptions daily that are hideously inefficient, waste their time and are causing them long-term damage,” he said. “We realized that we could — and should — sort this situation out.” 

Doing so was no task for the harebrained.

“The project has been four years in the making, and not unlike your transition from freshman to senior year, the Dyson Supersonic Hair Dryer has been on its own long, strange journey with 600 prototypes built, and approximately 1,010 miles of human hair tested in the process,” writes Marianne Mychaskiw for InStyle.

That was a $71 million investment in your well being, by the way.

“The engineering jewel inside is a new V9 digital motor, which is Dyson's smallest, lightest motor yet. The company even drafted a team of aero-acoustic engineers … to tinker with the noise the Supersonic makes,” writes Mat Smith for Engadget. “The team increased the motors' blades from 11 to 13, which meant that one of the tones made by the motor was shifted beyond audible for humans. Sir James Dyson also noted at the press launch in Tokyo that it rotates fast enough (110,000 rotations per minute) to classify itself as ultrasonic — if not quite super.”

As for marketing of the paid variety, “Oh, and they enlisted internationally acclaimed celebrity stylist Jen Atkin as the tool's ambassador,” reports Emily Orofino for Popsugar. 

“Atkin declared the aesthetic ‘so gorgeous,’ and we have to agree,” Orofino writes. “In lieu of the typical hair dryer shape, the Supersonic is a more elegant, elongated design. There's also no need to fuss with different clip-on attachments: Dyson's diffuser, styling concentrator, and smoothing nozzle were all engineered to be magnetic, so you can easily snap them on and off while styling.” 

Look for more products like this, which she saw at a preview event Dyson held in New York City a couple of months ago, reports Margaret Rhodes for Wired. 

“Dyson’s plan for his company is to expand beyond the niche and high-end. As we noted last year, ‘he wants to build a full-blown technology company, one that reaches into our houses in ways you can only guess.’ If that’s going to happen, the bathroom counter isn’t a bad next step.”

Apparently, for the early reviews are gushing.

“It wasn't until an ex-boyfriend bought me a Dyson vacuum for my birthday that I truly appreciated the brand's awesomeness,” writes Sophia Panych for Allure over the hed “This Crazy-Looking Dyson Blow-dryer Is About to Change Everything.”

“Yes, initially I was pissed he bought me a vacuum for my birthday,” she admits parenthetically. But “after five minutes of using it, I knew I could never go back to my crappy old vacuum with its messy bags, cumbersome nozzles, and a body that looks like R2D2. And I suspect I'll soon be saying the same about my old blow-dryer.”

It’s $399.99, comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee and a two-year warranty and should be available in September. “Register” here and pay over 12 months. It will be available through Sephora, too.