Sharks Dyson AirStrait competitor just dropped. Heres how the SilkiPro worked on my damp curly hair.

Doing my hair after a wash day has been one of my most formidable personal tasks since middle school. I’m not exaggerating when I say that taming my coarse curls takes two business days, mostly because it historically just puffs up if I force it to dry within a few hours. But now that I’m deep into healthy hair journey brain rot TikTok, I realize that my years of sleeping on wet hair have just been exacerbating my frizz and damage. Shark announced the SilkiPro just as I started looking for ways to streamline my heat styling method.

The Shark SilkiPro costs $249.99 and came out on Feb. 17. I’ve fully straightened my hair twice so far after getting my SilkiPro a bit early, and I’d say it’s going smoothly — the routine itself, and my hair afterward. But one concern about buying the SilkiPro keeps creeping into my head. Let’s debrief.

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Credit: Shark

Shark SilkiPro

$249.99
at SharkNinja

 

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What’s special about the Shark SilkiPro?

The SilkiPro isn’t the first Shark hair tool to combine blow drying and heated ceramic plates, but it is the first standalone Shark straightener that doesn’t have to be bundled with any other attachments. I got the plum one, but it comes in rose and turquoise, too.

One side of the SilkiPRO is very light lavender.
Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable

The other side of the SilkiPRO is darker purple.
Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable

Wet-to-dry straighteners like the SilkiPro operate much like your classic clamp flat iron, but add air vents along the side near the plates. The concentrated air jets point at an angle as you slide down the strand, evaporating moisture on the hair right ahead of it before the ceramic plates get to it. Integrated sensors in the ceramic plates measure temperature 1,000 times per second to help prevent heat damage during wet-to-dry styling. (You can also manually toggle between three heat and airflow settings.) I know it’s hard to believe that the steaming Remington Wet 2 Straight from 2004 is no longer the pinnacle of wet-to-dry technology.

On the wet hair setting, the fans kick on and hum quietly (sometimes turning off completely if the device senses it’s not in use). But when you clamp down on a piece of hair, the jets automatically start roaring like a true hair dryer.

Slide any of the three combs right onto the edge of the straightener.
Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable

The SilkiPro heats up within seconds.
Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable

Unique to the SilkiPro are the three comb attachments that come in the box. Each simply slides into a track along the edge of the straightener to prepare the strand for smooth ironing. There are two black combs with shorter teeth: a gentle comb for a full-bodied, natural look and a precision comb for a sleeker, pin-straight look. Because I have curly hair that’s even curlier near my scalp, I reached for the purple wide-tooth comb as my first step in the styling process. It spaces hair out for easier rough drying at the root and gently stretches tightly wound curls for easier straightening.

The wide tooth comb ensured I wasn’t simply deep frying a giant knot.
Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable

I TOLD YOU my hair doesn’t blow dry well.
Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable

Now that I’m fully giving electrocuted cartoon character, it’s time to remove the comb and go over my whole head with the wet hair setting again. Your hair should be 70 percent dry at this step, which is perfect for my hair that feels like it never fully air dries. It’s also an incredibly convenient option when you’re already running late for plans and haven’t even started on your hair yet because it’s still wet.

My initial Shark SilkiPro results

My hair was slightly dryer than towel dried before.
Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable

The SilkiPRO made my hair quite sleek, which isn’t always the case when I straighten it.
Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable

For the final step, you can switch the SilkiPro to the dry hair straightening setting to lock the style in and make any final touch-ups. I was impressed with how glossy my hair was by the end, though the whole three-step process still took well over an hour (and that’s with my hair at its shortest in a decade). I prefer my straightened hair to have a little more bounce throughout with a flip at the end, but for testing purposes, the SilkiPro was successful at making my hair straight straight.

I fully bought into the Abby Yung hair method a month ago, and I’m convinced that’s playing a role in the smoothness, too. I’m so sorry to confirm that double washing and adding a bond repair step does legitimately make fried hair softer. At any rate, I showed up to happy hour with SilkiPro straightened hair, and my friend immediately commented on how healthy it looked.

What’s the difference between the Shark SilkiPro and the Shark Glam?

The Shark SilkiPro is nearly identical to the Shark Glam with the Shark Silki straightening attachment.

The SilkiPro lets you bring home just the wet-to-dry straightening on its own for $249.99, rather than committing to multiple attachments in a Build Your Own Glam bundle, which retails for between $399.99 and $449.99. The SilkiPro also comes with the three interchangeable combs, while the wide tooth comb is one of the optional attachments that you can add to your Glam bundle.

The size difference between the the Shark Glam (left) and SilkiPro (right).
Credit: Leah Stodart

The SilkiPro’s ceramic plate is slightly wider than the Glam’s.
Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable

But the sheer existence of the Shark Glam kind of cannibalizes the SilkiPro’s value, especially with the Glam being on sale for $299.99 on the SilkiPro’s launch date. At that point, wouldn’t you just cough up the extra $50 to get the Glam bundle with the Silki straightener, the Glossi brush, and two other attachments of your choosing? I certainly could have used Shark’s FrizzFighter attachment to tame the flyaways in my SilkiPro “after” picture.

My roommate has let me use her Shark Glam a few times, and the air straightening experience is pretty indistinguishable from the SilkiPro’s. The settings are the same, and the Glam’s fans also automatically crank their velocity every time you clamp down on a piece of hair.

Credit to it, the SilkiPro is noticeably more ergonomic than the Glam. The Glam’s body-plus-attachment design is awkwardly weighted and makes the full wand several inches longer than the SilkiPro. The in-hand comfort is something to consider if styling your hair takes so long that it starts to feel like an arm workout. The SilkiPro’s portability will be a huge advantage when traveling, too — I can see it being an amazing tool to take on vacation or any trip when you can’t follow your typical hair washing and drying schedule.

For what it’s worth, the launch of the SilkiPro just made the Dyson AirStrait look ridiculously overpriced. The AirStrait could get away with its $499.99 price point for a while, but now that it’s not the only straightener that dries as it straightens, even its $399.99 sale price feels out of touch.

Features to keep an eye on

If you’re a fan of flat iron curls, it doesn’t seem like the Shark SilkiPro is going to be one of the best straighteners for curling hair. I’ve been curling the ends of my hair rather than trying to get them pin straight with my GHD Platinum+ for years, but the Shark SilkiPro was unresponsive to my ribboning technique that has worked so well in the past. I think it’s the strip of air vents jutting out that’s preventing hair from smoothly wrapping between the plates, leaving my hair limp and definitely not flipped inward like the fake blowout look.

I was racking my brain for ways that the SilkiPro could become more cost-effective (compared to the Glam) down the line. Either the SilkiPro needs to go on sale immediately, or at least make a compatible FrizzFighter attachment. But the SilkiPro’s design doesn’t seem built for adding attachments that need to use airflow from the tool.