I spent two months testing the Dreame Miracle Pro — and I went straight back to my drugstore hair dryer

The Dreame Miracle Pro is positioned weirdly in the semi-oversaturated hair dryer market. It’s not a hair styler, so it can’t go head-to-head with the Dyson Airwrap, Shark FlexStyle, or even the $100-cheaper Dreame Dazzle. It has one job: to dry hair. Forget blowouts or curls. The Miracle Pro can’t do any of that.

But does it dry hair well? Um… not really? It depends on how sensitive your scalp is. For me, the Miracle Pro is way too cold then way too hot — it dries at either 97°F or 140°F, there’s no in between — but if you have a particularly resilient scalp, I can see some merits here.

The design is on point, with a gorgeous rose-gold exterior and a high-quality construction. But the heat-and-performance-related issues made me long for my drugstore BaByliss hair dryer every time I used the Miracle Pro. Still want to find out more? Keep reading this Dreame Miracle Pro review.

Dreame Miracle Pro review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? A Dyson-esque iconic hair dryer — not a hair styler
• Who is it for? If you don’t want to shell out $649 for the Dyson Supersonic r
• What does it do well? It looks great, has a nice storage box, and comes with four attachments
• What are its weaknesses? The advertised ‘Smart Heat Control’ is nonexistent, which means it either burns your scalp or takes thirty minutes to dry one side of your head

Dreame Miracle Pro review: Specs

Dreame Miracle Pro review: Price & availability

The Dreame Miracle Pro is $399 from Amazon U.S. and sold by Boots for £299 in the U.K. This isn’t budget nor premium, but firmly in the midrange of hair dryers. The Dyson Supersonic r will set you back $649, the Shark SpeedStyle is $259, and the Dreame Dazzle is $299.

Honestly, I recommend just checking out the Shark model if you want to save more money, or the Dyson if you’re after the best-of-the-best. I don’t think the Miracle Pro is versatile enough to be worth your money just yet.

Dreame Miracle Pro review: Design

The Miracle Pro’s excellence lies in its design. This hair dryer is gorgeous, and it knows it is. There’s an elegance to its appearance, from its rose-gold exterior to its high-quality attachment nozzles.

There are four of said attachment nozzles: a diffuser, two narrow nozzles, and a flyaway tamer. Removing and inserting each nozzle is very easy. I have nothing bad to say about these nozzles; they all do their job perfectly well. It’s the actual hair dryer that’s the problem — but more on that later.

As I’ve already said, this is not a hair styler — it is a hair dryer — so each nozzle dries your hair in the same way, depending on your hair texture. There are no styling barrels like you might expect on the Dreame Dazzle or the Dyson Airwrap.

What separates the Miracle Pro from Dreame’s other hair dryers — like the $299 Dazzle — is the ‘essence’. Let me explain. Said ‘essence’ is effectively an oil/serum that releases during drying to make your hair smoother. I didn’t notice any effect on my hair, but I guess it could be an interesting feature if your hair is particularly receptive to things like this.

As with other Dreame hair dryers, the cord is 9.2 feet, which is longer than the Dyson Airwrap i.d.’s 8.7 feet. I found it super easy to move the hair dryer around, as it’s relatively lightweight, and could hold the dryer in one hand with a round brush in the other with no issues. If you want to style your hair with the Miracle Pro, you’ll need secondary styling tools, i.e., a round brush for blowouts.

Dreame Miracle Pro review: Performance

If you couldn’t tell already, I really wasn’t impressed with the dying performance of the Dreame Miracle Pro. I used all four of the attachments, but mostly used the diffuser to dry my curly (permed) hair. The hair dryer operates at 80dB, which is louder than the Dyson Airwrap.

My BaByliss Salon Pro 2200 (£40/$53) takes around 7-16 minutes to dry my hair, depending on how long I ‘plop’ for (if you’re not attuned to the curly girl language, ‘plopping’ is basically when you put your wet hair in a towel/T-shirt before drying).

Comparatively, the Miracle Pro took well over 20 minutes to dry half my head, because I could only use ‘Comfort’ mode and ‘Cool’ mode. ‘Scalp’ dries with 100°F heat, and ‘Cool’ dries with 86°F. Comparatively, ‘Comfort’ and ‘Quick Dry’ are 140°F/176°F respectively.

This is simply too big a jump. There needs to be an in between — 97°F or 140°F is ridiculous. Alternatively, the next model of the hair dryer could have a completely customizable temperature flow, which would negate this problem. I’ve never seen this done before, so it would be a super cool, innovative USP.

I found the scalp-burning issue quite strange, as Dreame advertises that the Miracle Pro includes a ‘Smart Heat Control’ AI feature. ‘Smart Heat Control’ is described thus: “An intelligent thermal regulation system adjusts airflow temperature and speed in real time based on distance and duration, preventing heat damage and optimizing results”.

I did not experience this once. The hair dryer reduces airflow when you put it down, but it never adjusted temperature when I was actively drying my hair. I tested this thoroughly, with all four attachments, in AI mode, out of AI mode, in all the different drying modes. I even pressed the nozzle directly into my scalp to see if it would adjust the temperature. No. Not once.

I later realized that the heat control only works with the nozzle attachment, but I still didn't notice much of a change when I switched the diffuser out for the nozzle. The temperature was either still hot or too cold. And, in my opinion, releasing a hair dryer whose flagship feature is only available on half of the attachments is ridiculous.

This is really disappointing, as the hair dryer is gorgeous, well-made, and looks premium. I just wish its functionality matched up.

I know excess heat isn’t good for your hair, and the Miracle Pro has a range of features that support hair health (including red light for scalp health accredited by SGS Switzerland). But if there’s a 176°F ‘Quick dry’ mode, why isn’t there a 113°F ‘Everyday’ mode?

You have two choices when using the Miracle Pro: either use ‘Scalp’ for double the amount of time you’d normally dry your hair for, or suffer through the 140°F 'Comfort' or 176°F ‘Quick dry’. If you have an asbestos scalp, you might be completely fine with the Miracle Pro. My skin is clearly too sensitive for it, and my colleague Ashley also used it and said it was too hot.

By the end of testing, I was just desperate for my $53 BaByliss Salon Pro 2200 I got from the drugstore. It dries my hair much faster, at a safe heat, for much, much less money.

Dreame Miracle Pro review: Storage & maintenance

As it comes with a lovely storage box, storing the Miracle Pro between uses is a dream. You can keep all of the attachments and the dryer itself in the box. It’s reminiscent of the storage box you’d get with the Dyson Airwrap i.d..

You get a 2-year warranty, which is less than Shark’s 5-year warranty, but the same as Dyson’s offering.

Dreame Miracle Pro review: Verdict

I admire Dreame’s apparent commitment to high-quality, well-made hair tools, but I think the Miracle Pro requires a little more perfecting. There needs to be either a completely adjustable temperature control, or a mode in between ‘Quick dry’, ‘Comfort’, and ‘Scalp care’. 176°F vs 97°F is simply too big a jump. Do I choose scalp-burning or slow-drying?

If there were an ‘Everyday’ mode at around 113°F, this would solve all of the Miracle Pro’s issues. However, at this current price point, I’m not sure who would really buy the Miracle Pro. If you want the best of the best, get the Dyson Supersonic r; if you want something more affordable, get the Laifen SE 2 ($139).

This says it all, really: every time I used the Miracle Pro, I was longing for my £40 ($53) hair dryer. It’s just not for me.