Multi-Stylers & Dupes
Shark FlexStyle: What the Published Specs Say
The reason 'dupe' is a search term in this category, read off Shark's own spec sheet.
Updated September 2026 · Sawyer V.
Shark publishes 1,600 W, 1.5 lb, an 8 ft cord, 120 V and a two-year limited warranty for the FlexStyle. It is 300 W more than the Dyson Airwrap, within 0.1 lb on weight, and the barrel section detaches so the handle works as a standalone hair dryer.
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The conversion is the actual product
Most coverage of this tool frames it as a cheaper Airwrap. The more interesting fact is on Shark’s own spec sheet: the barrel section detaches and the handle works as a conventional hair dryer.
That is not a bonus feature. It means one purchase covers both the drying tool you use every day and the styling tool you use some days, where an Airwrap owner who wants a proper dryer buys twice. If you are comparing total spend rather than sticker price, this row moves the comparison more than anything else on the sheet.
What Shark publishes
- 1,600 W, peak 1,600 W — identical to the Dyson Supersonic dryer and 300 W above the Airwrap.
- 1.5 lb, 0.1 lb heavier than the Airwrap and lighter than every conventional dryer in our registry except the T3s.
- 8 ft cord, 120 V, and a two-year limited warranty — matching Dyson exactly on the last two.
- Configurable attachments — auto-wrap curlers, an oval brush, a paddle brush, a concentrator and a diffuser, chosen at purchase.
The IonCurl variant publishes 1,700 W at the same 1.5 lb and 8 ft cord, aimed at hair the original dried too slowly.
What Shark does not publish
Heat settings and speed settings. Neither count appears on the product page, which is the clearest gap on their side of this comparison and the one place Dyson is straightforwardly more transparent.
It matters most for fine and damaged hair, where the question is how low the low setting goes. If your hair is robust it is a small omission; if it is fragile, buy a tool that tells you.
Nobody publishes a decibel figure — not Shark, not Dyson, not any of the ten competitor pages we examined in research.
What it costs to run
At 1,600 W over 65 hours a year, the FlexStyle draws 104 kWh, which at 18.34 cents per kWh is $19.07 a year — about $3.60 a year more than the Airwrap, or eighteen dollars over five years.
Price per use, at 5 uses a week over 5 years
| What you pay | Cost per use | Cost per year |
|---|---|---|
| $30 | $0.02 | $6.00 |
| $60 | $0.05 | $12.00 |
| $100 | $0.08 | $20.00 |
| $150 | $0.12 | $30.00 |
| $200 | $0.15 | $40.00 |
| $300 | $0.23 | $60.00 |
| $400 | $0.31 | $80.00 |
| $500 | $0.38 | $100.00 |
5 uses a week for 5 years is 1300 uses. Both figures are stated assumptions, not measurements — halve the life and every cost per use doubles. We publish the ladder rather than a worked example for one specific product because a price we typed into a sentence would be wrong within a week.
Who it suits
- Anyone who needs a dryer and a styler. One purchase, both jobs. This is the strongest case for the tool and it is frequently under-stated.
- Thicker hair. 300 W more than the Airwrap on a tool whose mechanism is drying hair into shape.
- Anyone weighing an Airwrap on value. The published rows mostly favor this tool, and the ones they do not are fractions of a pound.
Who should skip it
- Fine or heat-damaged hair, not because the tool is wrong but because the unpublished heat-setting count is the exact specification you need to check.
- Anyone who already owns a dryer they like, since the conversion — the strongest argument for it — is worth nothing to you.
- Travelers. 120 V only, like everything in this category.
The direct comparison is at Airwrap vs FlexStyle, and the wider field including cheaper options is at Airwrap dupes.
The tools on this page
Prices come from the live price layer. Where none is available the button says so rather than showing a number we cannot stand behind.
Shark FlexStyle air styling and drying system
Exactly the same published wattage as the Dyson Supersonic, in a tool that also converts to a dryer — the single strongest number in the dupe argument.
Dyson Airwrap multi-styler (Complete Long)
1,300 W is the lowest published wattage of any mains tool in this registry. That is the design argument, and it is also why it is slow on thick hair.
Questions people actually ask
Is the Shark FlexStyle a good Airwrap dupe?
On published specifications it leads on wattage, matches on warranty and voltage, trails by 0.1 lb on weight, and adds a conversion to a standalone dryer that the Airwrap does not have. Neither publishes airflow, so curl quality cannot be settled from spec sheets.
Does the Shark FlexStyle work as a hair dryer?
Yes. The barrel section detaches and the handle functions as a conventional dryer, which is the single biggest practical difference between it and the Dyson Airwrap.
How many watts is the Shark FlexStyle?
Shark publishes 1,600 W, with a peak of 1,600 W. The IonCurl variant publishes 1,700 W at the same weight and cord length.
How many heat settings does the FlexStyle have?
Shark does not publish a heat-setting or speed-setting count on the product page, which is the one clear gap in an otherwise complete spec sheet. If your hair is fine or damaged, that is the row you most need.