The Art of Hand Positioning: Which Hand Should Hold Your Blow Dryer?
When it comes to achieving the perfect blowout, technique matters – and that includes something as fundamental as which hand holds which tool. While there's no universally "right" or "wrong" way to position your hands while blow drying, understanding the most common approaches can help you find what works best for you.
The Statistics: What Most People Do
Through observation and experience in the hair styling world, a clear pattern emerges:
80% of people use their left hand to hold the brush and their right hand to hold the dryer. This is the most common configuration you'll see in salons and at home.
20% of people do the opposite – using their right hand for the brush and left hand for the dryer. Interestingly, this smaller group often includes some of the most skilled professionals in the industry.
The Professional Perspective
What's fascinating is that many of the top-tier blow dry and hair styling experts tend to fall into that 20% category. There seems to be something about using the right hand for brush control that contributes to exceptional results. However, it's important to note that skill isn't determined by hand positioning alone – there are absolutely incredible hairdressers who achieve stunning results using the more traditional left-hand brush technique.
The Ultimate Approach: Becoming Ambidextrous
Here's where things get interesting – and where the legendary Vidal Sassoon's wisdom comes into play. Sassoon encouraged his students to be ambidextrous with both the brush and blow dryer, and honestly, this is the game-changing approach every stylist should embrace.
Think about it: if you can blow dry beautifully with your left hand holding the brush, why limit yourself? True mastery comes from being able to use both hands fluidly. It's like martial arts, yoga, or Pilates – you wouldn't just work one arm or one side of your body. You use whichever hand and angle makes sense for where you are on the head, alternating to give each hand equal attention and development.
The Practical Benefits
Beyond the obvious skill advancement, ambidextrous blow drying offers real-world benefits:
- Better balance and ergonomics for your body
- Injury prevention – if one hand or wrist is in pain, you can rotate to allow recovery
- Optimal angles for every section of the head
- Professional versatility and that ultimate flex factor
Embrace the Learning Curve
Yes, blow drying has a learning curve. If you've been using your left hand with the brush for years, switching to your right might feel awkward at first – you might even look terrible initially. But embrace the suck! It's absolutely worth it. You'll be developing new neuroplasticity in your brain, similar to "switch footing" in surfing. It might be challenging at first, but once you master it, the balance and muscle development benefits are incredible.
Remember: suitcases never had wheels back in the day. For decades, we all just carried our heavy luggage until someone revolutionized travel forever. Now you don't see anyone at the airport without a wheeled suitcase. Sometimes the best innovations feel awkward until they become second nature.
The Sassoon Legacy and Evolution
Speaking of Vidal Sassoon, here's a fascinating piece of hair history: he actually outlawed round brushes at his salons and academies. They were too similar to the traditional roller sets of the jet-set elite crowd he was rebelling against. Sassoon preferred paddle brushes, primarily the Denman brush. But here's the catch – if you had curly hair that you wanted blown out silky smooth, you were out of luck at a Sassoon salon.
Ironically, Vidal loved women with curly hair and would cut it to enhance and flow with their natural texture. This philosophy reportedly stemmed from his time in the Israeli Defense Forces in the 1940s, where he fell in love with the beautiful curly hair of Tel Aviv women. His appreciation for natural curls actually helped spark the perm movement – Sassoon literally dreamed in curly hair.
The Beverly Hills Revolution
When Sassoon came to Los Angeles in the late 60's, and later when Sassoon stylists – masters of precision cuts – established themselves there, they faced a challenge: it was sink or swim time. Beverly Hills is the blow dry capital of the world, with a diverse population featuring lots of curly hair. Add in some of the hardest water in the USA (which makes hair extra frizzy), and boar bristle round brush blowouts became absolutely essential.
French and Japanese hairdressers arrived in Beverly Hills wielding mesmerizing boar bristle round brush techniques that local clients couldn't resist. The winning combination? Sassoon cutting techniques merged with French blow drying mastery.
One former Sassoon instructor who built a thriving Beverly Hills salon once said about round brushing: "I can use an Ibiza - the ultimate hair hack." That's actually where our tagline came from: "It's NOT A ROUND BRUSH, IT'S AN IBIZA."
There's pure joy in using Ibiza hair brushes – you get to witness beauty and shine light up your clients' faces, see their smiles transform as their hair comes to life. It's a brush that works as hard as you do, or even works for you if you let it. That's the magic of having the right tool in your hands.
Sassoon Techniques in Action
Some of the techniques Sassoon developed with blow drying include the wrapping and feathering technique, which you can master with our concave brushes like the Z5, Z4, B8, and RLX5. These techniques also work beautifully with our Contour Vent Brush and Mother of Pearl brushes WP7 and MP7. Using a flat vent brush to get texture through the dryer was a technique I learned at Sassoon Academy in Santa Monica from my teacher Traci Sakosits – it's all about creating movement and texture while maintaining that signature Sassoon precision.
Sassoon's techniques didn't allow for round brushing, and sometimes constraints like that can actually make you more creative. I once had a teacher at a salon – Terah Tidy, former Sebastian International artistic director – teach a blow dry class at a salon in Silverlake where I worked. She gave us a 5-week progression, meeting once a week: 1st class was blow drying just with hands, 2nd class with a vent brush, 3rd class paddle brush, 4th class Denman, and finally the 5th class with ceramic or boar round brushes.
It's actually brilliant to learn how to manipulate hair with your hands and all these other brushes before you ever touch an Ibiza round brush. That way, you can truly appreciate its power and use your hands to aid and move hair in ways that complement the brush – rather than just relying on the tool to do everything.
Breaking the Rules: Gerard Scarpaci's Revolution
My mentor and co-founder of Hairbrained, Gerard Scarpaci, was a young teacher at Sassoon in the 90's who would later revolutionize my approach to styling. When Gerard left Sassoon, he went on to work at Aveda and then Arrojo NYC. But here's the fascinating part: when he left Sassoon, he embraced the two things that were completely outlawed there – the razor and the round brush.
Gerard said the Ibiza boar round brushes were like "Velcro rollers" – they didn't get stuck in the hair like other boar round brushes. He also promoted core cutting and developed an almost Bruce Lee kung fu approach to doing hair as ergonomically as possible. His styling philosophy incorporated not just being ambidextrous, but never lifting your hands above your shoulders. He taught using your salon chair strategically – lowering it all the way to the floor so you don't have to raise your shoulders so high. He even recommended stools for shorter hairdressers.
A quality salon chair should go very low, but the cheap ones don't – and they're terrible for shorter hairdressers. Salon chairs and brushes seem to have a lot in common: invest in quality, and your body (and your work) will thank you.
Finding Your Perfect Technique
The key takeaway? True mastery comes from versatility. Whether you're developing ambidextrous skills or perfecting your dominant hand technique, focus on:
- Building comfort and control with both hands
- Smooth, coordinated movements from any angle
- Consistent tension and technique
- Continuous practice and refinement
Remember, great hair styling evolves through skill, practice, and pushing beyond your comfort zone – just like those Sassoon masters who adapted their precision cuts to the round brush revolution.
Looking to upgrade your blow drying tools? Browse our selection of professional-quality hair dryers and brushes to perfect your technique.
