These 6 Hair Tool Brands Are All The Same Company
You have a Revlon One-Step in the bathroom drawer. Your sister swears by her Drybar. Your stylist reaches for Hot Tools. Three brands, three price points, three completely different personalities on the box.
Same company. Same headquarters in El Paso, Texas.
Once you see how these brands are stacked on top of each other, you will never pay full price for a blow dry brush again.
The company nobody in the hair world talks about
It’s called Helen of Troy Limited — ticker HELE on the NASDAQ, incorporated in Texas back in 1968. Last fiscal year it booked just under $1.8 billion in sales across everything it touches, from hair appliances to Hydro Flask to Vicks.
Almost nobody shopping for a curling iron has heard the name. That is not an accident. It’s the business model.
The four hair tool brands Helen of Troy owns outright
1. Hot Tools Professional
The salon-credibility brand. Gold barrel curling irons, stylist station drawers, professional beauty supply distribution. Owned outright — no license fee, no outside brand partner.
2. Drybar
Here’s the sleight of hand most shoppers miss. Drybar started as a chain of blowout salons, and the salons and the product line are two separate businesses. Helen of Troy bought the products division only, in January 2020. The yellow dryers, the Double Shot brush, the buttercup aesthetic — that’s a consumer appliance company’s hardware wearing a salon brand’s premium.
3. Gold ‘N Hot
Sold through beauty supply channels and aimed largely at textured and coily hair: pressing combs, high-heat dryers, that lane. Owned.
4. Pro Beauty Tools
They didn’t even try to hide this one. Pull up the Walmart listings and the product titles literally read “Helen of Troy Pro Beauty Tools.”
The two they rent
5. Revlon
This one isn’t a purchase. It’s a license, and the terms are remarkable.
In December 2020, Helen of Troy paid Revlon $72.5 million — one time, up front — for an exclusive global license to put the Revlon name on hair appliances and tools. The agreement runs through 2060, with three additional 20-year auto-renewal periods stacked behind it. Effectively a century. And no ongoing royalties.
So read this slowly: the Revlon One-Step Volumizer, arguably the most recommended hair tool on the internet, is not made by the Revlon that makes your lipstick. It’s a Helen of Troy product wearing a rented name.
6. Bed Head
Also a license. Helen of Troy states it flatly on its own website: Braun, Vicks, Honeywell, Revlon and Bed Head are used under license from their respective licensors. That includes the Bed Head Curlipops wand that made our list of 5 Cheap Curling Wands Everyone Ignores.
The portfolio at a glance
| Brand | Owned or licensed | Shelf tier |
|---|---|---|
| Revlon (hair tools) | Licensed | Entry / mass |
| Bed Head | Licensed | Entry / mass |
| Pro Beauty Tools | Owned | Value |
| Gold ‘N Hot | Owned | Beauty supply |
| Hot Tools Professional | Owned | Professional |
| Drybar | Owned | Prestige |
How to spot this yourself, on any shelf
You don’t need a stock ticker to run this check in a store aisle:
- Flip the box and read the fine print — not the logo, the fine print at the bottom. That’s where the actual corporate entity has to be disclosed.
- Check the warranty card. Warranty claims get routed to the parent company, not the brand on the front.
- Compare the addresses. Two brands that send you to the same address in El Paso are not two brands. They’re two labels.
“Good/Better/Best” — the quiet part, out loud
When Helen of Troy announced the Revlon license, the CEO explained precisely why the company wanted it. He said Revlon plays a critical role in the company’s “Good/Better/Best strategy” for global hair appliances.
Good. Better. Best.
That is not consumer language. That is shelf architecture. It means these brands are not competing with each other — they’re assigned. Revlon is the entry tier. Hot Tools is the professional tier. Drybar is the prestige tier. Same category, same parent, three price bands, and the customer is meant to climb the ladder.
$35 versus $155 for functionally the same tool
Watch what the ladder does to the price tag:
- Revlon One-Step Volumizer: roughly $30–$65, and it falls to the low thirties on every major sale event.
- Drybar Double Shot: around $155.
Same category. Same parent company. Functionally the same device — a heated oval brush with three heat settings and a cool shot button.
Reviewers who’ve run them side by side keep landing in the same place. The Drybar has a slightly smaller barrel, runs cooler and gentler, and the finish tends to hold a day or two longer. The Revlon runs hotter and dries faster.
That’s a real difference. It is not a $120 difference. It’s the same pricing psychology Dyson used to build a $400 dryer category, which we broke down in You’re Paying $400 For A Hair Dryer Built To Look Expensive.
And prices are heading up, not down
The pressure is showing. In the quarter Helen of Troy reported in October 2025, net sales fell almost 9%, and organic sales in the Beauty & Wellness division dropped more than 18%. Tariffs hit the company for somewhere between $55 million and $65 million gross. Management’s stated response: reduce exposure to Chinese manufacturing, and raise prices.
So when your blow dry brush costs more next season, that isn’t because the engineering improved.
Where your money should actually go
For a blow dry brush: buy the Revlon One-Step and wait for a sale. You’re buying the same corporate parent’s product for roughly a third of the money. The one honest exception is fine or already-damaged hair, where the Drybar’s gentler heat genuinely matters. Everyone else can run the Revlon on the low setting and get that difference for free.
For a curling iron: Hot Tools is the strongest of the six, and notably it’s an owned brand rather than a rented name. There’s no license fee to recover and no outside brand owner to keep happy. It’s the tier where what you pay and what you get actually line up — and it’s the one Helen of Troy would still own if every license expired tomorrow.
Gold ‘N Hot and Pro Beauty Tools are the value shelf of the same warehouse. Nothing wrong with either. Just know what you’re standing in front of.
The bottom line
In hair tools, the logo on the barrel tells you which shelf the marketing department assigned you to. It does not tell you who built the thing.
Six brands. Four owned, two rented. One parent company — and one price ladder you’re not obligated to climb.
Related reading
- 5 Hair Straighteners Robbing You Blind (And 5 Actually Worth It) — the same markup logic, applied to flat irons
- 5 Cheap Hair Straighteners Everyone Ignores (But They’re Goldmines)
- 5 Cheap Curling Wands Everyone Ignores (But They’re Goldmines)
- You’re Paying $400 For A Hair Dryer Built To Look Expensive
- 5 Hair Tool Brands Actually Worth Your Money
Sources
- Helen of Troy investor press releases — Revlon license extension (December 2020), Drybar Products acquisition (January 2020)
- helenoftroy.com — “Our Brands” and “About Us” brand and licensing disclosures
- USPTO trademark records — Hot Tools, Gold ‘N Hot, Pro Beauty Tools ownership
- Helen of Troy Q2 FY2026 earnings reporting (October 2025) — segment sales and tariff impact
- Comparative retail pricing and published side-by-side reviews (Revlon One-Step, Drybar Double Shot)
Prices fluctuate. Figures reflect typical retail ranges at time of writing.
