Key Difference: Hair dryers or blow dryers are electromechanical devices that give off hot or cool air to dry hair quickly after a shower. The hair dryer is designed to give off the air to help accelerate the evaporation of water from the hair. Heat guns are electronic devices that are used to emit hot air. Heat guns can emit heat between 100°C and 550°C (200-1000°F), with some commercial models going up to 760°C (1400°F). The heat gun is in the shape of a gun, as the name suggests.

Hair dryers and heat guys are both electric devices that emit a stream of hot air. However, they are not the same and are also used in different contexts. Hair dryers are well for drying hair mostly and can also be used sometimes in case of a heat gun. A heat gun emits much higher temperatures compared to hair dryers and are used for commercial purposes. It should never be used on the hair as it can result in singeing the hair. These are two completely different devices and should not be used interchangeably.

Hair dryers or blow dryers are electromechanical devices that give off hot or cool air to dry hair quickly after a shower. The hair dryer is designed to give off the air to help accelerate the evaporation of water from the hair. The faster evaporation also allows the hair to style and set quickly compared to air drying. Hence, hair dryers are a common feature of almost all salons and hair styling boutiques. After a wash, temporary hydrogen bonds form between strands of hair and are quite powerful and determine the shape and style of hair. Blow dryers also play a huge part in controlling these hydrogen bonds that shape the hair. These bonds are temporary and can be washed out.

Hair dryers and blow dryers were invented around the 1890s by Alexander F. "Beau" Godefroy and were a part of his salon in France. It is said that Godefroy created the hair dryer by taking inspiration from a vacuum cleaner. These traditional hair dryers were huge and had a dome that was placed on top of the client’s head, which would put out warm air to dry and style the hair. Modern versions of such devices, known as hair hood dryers are still seen in some salons. The handheld hair dryers that are found in almost all households popped up during the 1920s and were used by beauty salons and professional stylists. However, the first patent for a blow dryer in America was filed in 1911 by Armenian American inventor Gabriel Kazanjian.

Hair dryers are made by using plastic with ceramic heating elements. The ceramic provides an instant heating capability, resulting in faster heating and drying time. The device has coils of wire with high electric resistivity along with a fan that is powered by a universal motor. The heating coils or ceramic heating elements provide the heat to heat up the air, while the fan blows the air out of the device. The devices are powered by electricity. The hair dryers also have a ‘cool’ button that does not provide heat but simply provides room temperature hair to reduce the frizz from the hair. Now-a-days, many dryers are available with various technologies such as ionic features, which are claimed to reduce static electricity between hair strands and make hair less frizzy and smoother. Hair dryers are also available with various attachments such as diffusers, airflow concentrators, and comb nozzle attachments.

 Heat guns are electronic devices that are used to emit hot air. Heat guns can emit heat between 100°C and 550°C (200-1000°F), with some commercial models going up to 760°C (1400°F). The heat gun is in the shape of a gun, as the name suggests. The gun has a trigger button at the button that turns the device own, with a nozzle on the top. In terms of shape, it resembles a hair dryer with a nozzle and a gun like shape; however, it differs as it emits much higher temperature air compared to hair dryers.

Heat guns are made up of a source of heat, for example an electrically heated element or a gas flame and has an electric fan that has the ability to move the hot air. It may also come with a nozzle that allows the user to direct the hot air towards a particular object.  The nozzle comes in various different shapes, depending on the requirement of the user. There is a trigger on the handle, which when pressed turns the machine on. It may also come with an external stand, if the user does not want to hold it for long periods of time.

Heat guns are used in various different applications including physics, materials science, chemistry, engineering, and other laboratory and workshop settings. Depending on the usage, the type of heating gun differs. The guns differ in terms of heat temperature and how the air flow is directed. The most common usage of the heat gun is to strip paint of the wall, where the painter heats the paint till it boils and then scrapes it off using a putty knife. It is also common in electronics for desoldering components of a circuit board. Soldering is attaching two components together by fusing the metal by applying heat. Desoldering is when the metal is heated again to take the components apart. In some cases, people have used a hair dryer instead of a heat gun and they claim that is works just as a heat gun but takes a little while longer for the heat to build up.

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