Think about your most expensive possession. You probably treat it with the utmost care, making sure to keep it away from anything that may cause it damage. You don't throw it around all willy-nilly and smash it into things, right? Well, that's exactly what the makers of Dyson's very first hair tool do to their dryers.
In order to test the longevity and durability of the tool, Dyson has an entire lab and team devoted to putting the gadget through absolute hell. Pushing buttons, whipping it around hard objects, throwing it on the ground, even having a grown-ass man step on it. All in the name of science.
In short, this dryer gets its ass kicked.
"Testing is conducted at every stage of the product development cycle," explains Tom Crawford, Dyson's global category director of personal care. "We do this to make sure our design is such that it can withstand the abuses subjected to it by daily life and any extreme or accidental misuses."
According to Crawford, the Supersonic goes through "every test imaginable." We're talking thousands of strict trials. As you see in the video above, those tests involve getting dropped, smashed, slammed, and crushed, among others. And then there's the shaking.
"The shaking machine seen in the video is our Dynamic Life Test," says Crawford, "a part of a series of tests which simulates an accelerated lifespan of the machine. In our research we have observed people rapidly shaking their hairdryers back and forward in use. This test has been developed to mimic this behavior." Crawford says that the Supersonic is shaken around 1.2 million times over a course of 1,000 hours of continuous shaking. Eek.
While it may seem excessive, the folks at Dyson say they put every one of their products through the same amount of rigorous testing. "We wanted to make sure the Supersonic carried every bit of quality one would expect of a Dyson product," says Crawford. "What we end up with is a top-quality product which is durable and does not have any extra or superfluous components which would add extra weight."
Take a look at the video to see just how beat-up this pricey dryer gets. We found ourselves fascinated watching the insane tests, but also cringing every time that poor little guy got yanked into a pole. Do us a favor, friends — be nice to your hair tools.