In article t,
"uncle k" wrote:

"Beachcomber" wrote in message

It is possible that the motor failed. These hair dryers take the
equivalent of electric radiant room heaters which on the high setting
is typically is 1500 watts or so, however they are designed to work
safely only when the blower motor provides cooling air. There should
be a thermal safety cutout in the appliance itself, but either this
failed or it wasn't installed.

Make that 1600 W, and considering the brand name, I would be easily duped
into assuming it had a thermal kill switch.

Curious to know if your hair dryer had a UL listing (Underwriters
Laboratories)?

I believe it did. Ya know, I even took the trouble to glance at the intake
screen before I plugged it in, since they are prone to clogging with lint.
It looked fine.

What I hadn't considered was that since this dryer came from my wife's
collection, it may have ingested some long hair, which ultimately strangled
the fan spindle. Or, this is a classic case of small appliance mechanical
failure, with a
happy ending.

Your case sounds a lot like this one:

http://www.cpsc.gov/CPSCPUB/PREREL/P.../94080org.html

Different brand, but might be same OEM.

In any case, I'll bet Vidal Sassoon will send you a free replacement
(hopefully something less flame happy) if you tell them that otherwise,
the charred specimen will be sent to the CPSC.