I Can Dry My Hiking Boots and My Hair With the Hedgehog Go
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My family and I recently traveled to Utah for about eight days of skiing, snowmobiling,biking, andhiking. Well before the trip, the forecast started calling for snow while we’d be in town. Several days of fresh precipitation and a week of outdoor activities and just as many evenings getting ready for dinner meant two things: Someone would be whining about wet boots, and my wife and teenage daughter, both with a lot of long, fine hair, were counting on bringing a full-sizehair dryerinstead of relying on the infrequently cleaned and often smelly hotel-supplied one.
That was the real concern. A bulky appliance quickly turns into “Let’s just check a bag.” No one on the team was excited about packing only one pair of boots for the whole trip, either. Prepacking, the air was thick with insurrection vibes.
Luckily, I had just ordered the Hedgehog Go, a two-in-one device that promised to keep boots and gloves dry — as well as hair. And it was about the size of a hardcover book.
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The meteorologists weren’t lying. Once in Utah, I put the Go to work on my size-14 Danner boots, which were damp after the first day of hiking in the snow. Before dinner, I placed the heels against a wall, set the dryer above them, rotated the arms down, and fed the tubes deep into the boots in an inverted-Y shape (you can also hang it from a loop on the plug). For taller ski boots, the motor can hang between the hoses in an M shape. I chose medium speed and heat — about 115 degrees — for 30 minutes (the timer can also be set to five, ten, 15, or 60 minutes). About ten minutes in, I checked the insole, and things were improving, though I had stuffed the wet laces into the boots to dry too. When the fan shut off, the Danners were done — and I never worried they were getting too hot because the dryer works at about 20 degrees cooler than typical models. I also appreciated the no-heat setting for leather shoes, where extra warmth isn’t ideal.
Over the week, everyone used the Go for boots and gloves. I dried wool base-layer pants by feeding the tubes into the waist and loosely knotting the legs and squeezed both hoses into a knit cap. The tubes extend from 7½ to 18 inches long, offering flexibility; with some creative bending, they could likely dry a helmet. The 72-inch-long cord adds a lot of convenience, too.
To use it for hair, you twist off the boot-drying attachment and thread on the hair-dryer tip, which directs air out at a 90-degree angle in sort of a fan shape. It’s not the pistol grip most hair dryers use, but the slim two-inch-wide body is comfortable to hold, and the Hedgehog weighs about as much as a larger iPhone. Each evening before dinner, the Go handled two heads of medium-length hair, though slower and noisier than what they’re used to. My family said the air felt cooler than their Dyson Supersonic at home, yet more forceful, and drying took five or six minutes longer than usual (a trade-off I was willing to make for the added versatility and smaller size).
Back home, testing showed the Go registered about 93 decibels, roughly twice as loud as the Dyson on high, which is less ideal next to your ear but won’tdamage your hearingif you keep usage under an hour. Hedgehog says the Go can reach 140 degrees, but my ThermoWorks thermocouple never recorded more than 130 degrees, and the warmest it reached in hair-drying mode was 120 degrees. The Dyson topped out at 220 degrees, and even my small Conair travel dryer hit 235 degrees.
The Go consumes 600 watts, low even for some travel hair dryers, while the Dyson draws 1,600 watts, pulling more energy that can be converted into heat. The Go dries in a reasonable amount of time because of its higher airflow, not heat, pushing nearly 17 liters per second versus about 13.3 from the Dyson. In other words, it dries by moving a larger volume of warm air over the hair, whereas the Dyson relies on a somewhat weaker stream of much hotter air (interestingly, the Dyson’s temperature drops when speed increases, going from 220 degrees down to 213 degrees at max speed). Drying with less heat over a longer period is less damaging to hair.
The Go won’t replace a family’s main dryer at home, but for winter trips, it proved effective and flexible — especially for gear — and I suspect it will also earn a spot in summer bags when Airbnb or hotel dryers can be hit or miss. Or anytime someone mentions checking a bag.
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