The history of hairdryers

Before the invention of the hair dryer, it was common for men and women to dry their hair using a vacuum cleaner. In fact, the original model of hair dryer was invented in 1890 by Alexander Godefroy by taking inspiration from the vacuum cleaner. Alexander invented it for usage in his hair salon in France and it was not portable or handheld, but instead could only be used by having the woman sit underneath it. A hair hood dryer has a hard plastic dome that comes down and fits over a person's head in order to dry their hair. Hot air is blown out through the tiny openings around the inside of the dome so the person's hair is dried evenly. Today hair hood dryers are mainly found in hair salons.
It was Armenian American inventor Gabriel Kazanjian who patented the first blow dryer in America in 1911.
It was not until around 1915 that the hair dryer began to go on the market in handheld form. This was due to innovations by National Stamping and Electricworks under the white cross brand (advertised here in 1915, and later U.S. Racine Universal Motor Company and the Hamilton Beach Co. that allowed the dryer to be handheld. Even in the 1920s, the new dryers were often heavy, weighing in at approximately 2 pounds (0.91 kg), and difficult to use. They also had many instances of overheating and electrocution. It was also only capable of using 100 watts, so it took a lot longer to dry hair (the average dryer today can use up to 2000 watts of heat).

Since the 1920s, development of the hair dryer has mainly focused on improving the wattage and superficial exterior and material changes. In fact, the mechanism of the dryer has not had any significant changes since its inception. One of the more important changes for the hair dryer is having the materials change to plastic so that it is more lightweight. This really caught on in the 1960s with the introduction of better electrical motors and the improvement of plastics. Another important change happened in 1954 when GEC changed the design of the dryer to move the motor inside the casing. Also, including safety mechanisms in them has been important, especially since Consumer Product Safety Commission set up guidelines in the 1970s that hair dryers had to meet in order to be considered safe to manufacture. Since 1991 the CPSC has mandated by U.S. law that all dryers must use a ground fault circuit interrupter so that it cannot electrocute a person if it gets wet. By 2000, deaths by blow-dryers had dropped to less than four people a year, a stark difference to the hundreds of cases of electrocution accidents during the mid-twentieth century. In terms of positive health, this type of dryer has also been cited as an effective treatment for head lice. Overall, the size, weight, noise, and appearance of the hair dryer has dramatically changed from the heavy bulky noisy contraptions of the early part of the twentieth century, to the streamlined plastic that people are used to today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_dryer