Wood or ceramic: which brush
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The honest answer is that there isn't a right one, and anybody who tells you otherwise is selling something.
It is like a chef choosing pans. Cast iron, carbon steel, copper, stainless — a good cook has opinions, those opinions are real, and none of them means the other pans are wrong. The cook reaches for a particular pan because of what it does and because it feels right in the hand, and both halves of that count.
I like wood. Plenty of stylists I respect prefer ceramic. Both of us are getting good results.
What wood does
The wooden bristles polish the hair as they pass through it.
That is the whole case, and it shows up in the finish — smoother, and noticeably shinier. It is a mechanical effect rather than a thermal one: the bristle surface passing along the strand flattens the cuticle as it travels, which is the same thing an acidic rinse does chemically and a cool blast does thermally. Three routes to the same place.
Wood also stays cooler. That is a disadvantage if you are trying to dry quickly and an advantage if you are working on hair you are trying not to punish — fine hair, coloured hair, anything already fragile.
It is heavier in the hand than ceramic, which some people dislike immediately and others stop noticing within a week.
What ceramic does
Lighter, and it runs hotter.
The barrel absorbs heat from the dryer and holds it, so you are effectively working with two heat sources instead of one — the air, and the barrel the hair is wrapped around. A lot of people find it dries faster for exactly that reason, and the metal surface helps smooth the hair as you work through it.
Think of it as a flat iron that never gets as hot as a flat iron. That is a genuinely useful thing to have and a genuinely easy thing to overdo.
The way I actually use both
Wood for the work. Ceramic to finish.
Most of a blowout is drying — moving water out of the hair, section by section, in controlled passes. Wood handles that well and treats the hair gently while it does.
But the finish is a different job. Smoothing the last of the frizz, setting a shape, getting the polished result someone came in for. That is where the extra heat earns its place, and where I would pick up the ceramic.
If you own one brush, it should be whichever suits your hair and your hand. If you own two, that is a more useful split than two of the same in different sizes.
The thing that matters more than the material
Size.
The barrel diameter determines the shape you get, and it is a far bigger variable than what the barrel is made of. Small barrels produce more curl and more root lift and take longer. Large barrels produce a smoother, straighter, looser result and move faster.
The general rule is that the barrel should be no wider than the shortest section you can hold cleanly, and the section should be no thicker than the barrel. People buy a brush that is too small for their hair and then wonder why a blow-dry takes an hour.
If you have long or thick hair and you are drying it yourself, err larger than you think. You will finish, which is the main thing.
The technique is identical either way
This is worth stating plainly, because the two brushes get talked about as though they need different handling. They do not.
Aim the dryer in the direction the hair is travelling — toward the ends. Never into the bristles, never at the barrel. Wind shorter hair around the barrel; on longer hair, lay it across the bristles rather than winding it in tight. One controlled pass at a time, following the brush as it moves.
Cool air into the brush is fine and useful; that is setting the shape. Hot air into the brush cooks the hair wrapped around it and shortens the life of the tool.
That rule holds for both materials, and it matters slightly more for ceramic, because a barrel that holds heat well holds mistakes well too.
They wear differently
Worth knowing before you buy.
Wood tells you when it is unhappy. Bristles loosen, the finish dulls, you can feel the drag change. It responds well to a hot-water-and-comb reshape and very badly to being stored damp.
Ceramic hides its wear. The barrel looks fine long after the surface has stopped being smooth, and because it runs hotter, product residue bakes on rather than sitting on top. Ceramic needs the weekly wash more than wood does, not less.
Both last years if you clean them and never point hot air into the barrel. Both die in a season if you don't.
Where boar bristle fits
The question underneath wood-versus-ceramic is usually really about bristles, so it is worth separating.
Boar bristle is the traditional smoothing bristle. It is close in structure to human hair, and it distributes the natural oil from the scalp down the strand as it passes, which is why hair brushed with it looks conditioned without anything being applied. On a round brush it is usually combined with nylon pins — the boar smooths, the nylon grips and provides the tension.
Pure boar has very little grip. It will polish beautifully and it will not hold a section under tension, so it suits fine hair and frustrates thick hair enormously. Mixed bristle is the sensible default for most people.
Nylon-only barrels grip hardest and smooth least. They are fast, they are the easiest to lose a section into, and they are usually what people mean when they say a brush pulled their hair.
And vented brushes
A vented brush is a different tool for a different stage, not a competitor to either of these.
The holes let air pass straight through, which makes it fast at moving water out of soaking hair. It gives almost no shape and almost no polish, because it is not trying to.
Used properly it is a rough-drying tool: take the hair from wet down to slightly damp, then swap to the round brush for the part that actually sets the shape. People who own only a vented brush wonder why their hair dries quickly and looks like nothing in particular. That is the tool doing its job and stopping there.
Which to buy first
If your hair is fine, coloured, or already damaged, start with wood. The gentler heat and the polishing effect are worth more to you than speed.
If your hair is thick, coarse, or simply takes forever to dry, start with ceramic. You will actually finish, and the extra heat is doing useful work rather than harm.
If you want the shiniest possible finish and are willing to spend the time, wood.
And if you cannot decide, buy the one that feels right when you pick it up. That is not a cop-out. Balance and weight in the hand determine whether you can hold clean tension through a whole section, and clean tension is most of the result. A brush you fight is a bad brush for you, whatever it is made of.
Where to buy
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Birch wood round brush
Wooden bristles, for a polished finish.
See the brushes -
Ceramic round brush
Lighter, and runs hotter.
See the brushes -
Paddle and wet-dry brush
Detangling and working product through wet hair.
See the brushes
My own brushes. These are not affiliate links.