Best nasal dilators in the UK (2026): internal and external

The best nasal dilators in the UK, by what you need

The best nasal dilator for most UK buyers who want nothing inside the nose is Airlift's, but other brands win on price, sizes to try, lifespan and sport.

• Nothing inside the nose, for most UK buyers: Airlift. An external magnetic clip with all five sizes in the box. The Complete starter (£33) covers 30 nights; bought one-time, the first year is £0.56 a night.
• Cheapest per night: AIRMAX. An internal dilator. The Trial Pack is £14.75 on Amazon UK, or £0.12 a night if both sizes fit, on its 2-month figure.
• Three sizes to try, easiest to buy: Mute. An internal dilator with a £14.99 Starter Pack (£0.50 a night if all three sizes fit).
• One adjustable device for two months: Silent Mammoth. £29.99 plus delivery, from £0.50 a night on the brand's 60-day figure.
• For sport: Turbine. Rhinomed's sport dilator, with a £16.99 Starter Pack.
• Cheapest way to test the idea: Breathe Right strips. £13.99 for 30 at Boots (£0.47 a night).

How we chose

We judged every product on the same criteria we use in every comparison: fit and sizing, what's in the box, ongoing cost per night, adhesion support, guarantee and returns, UK availability and delivery, subscription flexibility, and published evidence.

Prices come from each brand's own pages, Amazon UK, Boots and the stockists named, checked on 27 and 28 October 2026. Costs are for one person, one device-night, strip or pair of stickers a night, on each brand's own lifespan figure. We didn't test comfort, airflow or how well anything stays in place, so nothing wins on those.

Not covered: the Snoreeze Nasal Dilator (out of stock on its own store, though Boots sells it; no published lifespan), and other vents and clips we have no verified UK details for.

Internal or external: which kind do you want?

An internal dilator sits inside both nostrils and uses no adhesive. An external dilator sits on the outside of the nose and holds on with adhesive: a strip goes across the bridge, while a magnetic clip sits across the front on two small stickers at the sides.

A 2026 review by UK surgeons found most research is on adhesive strips such as Breathe Right, and that devices worn inside the nostril tended to perform better than external ones.^[1] Some people can't get on with something in their nostrils, though, and others don't want adhesive on their skin.

Nasal strips vs nasal dilators compares all three formats in more detail, and magnetic vs adhesive nasal strips looks at the two external options.

Prices, sizes and guarantees side by side

Starter prices per night assume every size in the pack fits you. If only one does, Mute's starter is £1.50 a night, Turbine's £1.70 and AIRMAX's £0.25.

Airlift: our pick if you want nothing inside the nose

Airlift is an external magnetic dilator. A rigid clip sits across the front of the nose, and its magnets attach to two single-use stickers, one on each side. Each sticker holds a thin steel disc, which the sticker covers on the skin side. Nothing goes inside the nose and nothing crosses the bridge. A UK company sells it, only through its own website.

Every Complete starter has the clip in all five sizes, a magnetic applicator, 30 nights of stickers and 30 cleansing prep pads, which clear skin oils before the stickers go on. The clips measure 26.7 mm (XS), 28.7 mm (S), 31.0 mm (M), 33.6 mm (L) and 35.9 mm (XL) across the inside of the wing tips, and you try each one at home rather than guess. The adhesive is latex-free.

It suits you if you don't want anything in your nostrils, don't know your size, or would rather buy in pounds from a UK company with no import charges. Every subscription order ships free by next-day delivery, with no minimum spend. One-time orders cost £5 to deliver, or nothing at £50 or more, and weekday orders before 3:30pm go out the same day.

The starter costs £1.10 a night. Bought one-time, the first year comes to £220 for 390 nights (£0.56 a night): the starter, £5 delivery, then Airlift's 360-night stickers pack (£182), with prep pads for the first 30 nights only. The Complete Annual plan (£240) is £0.67 a night with prep pads and delivery in every box, and you can skip, pause or cancel at any time.

Under the 90-Night Airlift Test, you email within 90 days of receiving your order for a full refund, delivery included. You keep the clip and send nothing back, once per customer. Of the brands in this guide, only Airlift publishes a full refund, including delivery, with nothing to send back and 90 days to claim.

Separately, the clip has a lifetime warranty against failure in normal use. It's automatic on Ultimate, and on other orders it applies when you register your Airlift within 30 days of delivery.

The drawbacks: Airlift has no Trustpilot reviews yet, and the company was set up in November 2024. There's no published, independent study of it and no published test data. It's sold only on its own website, to UK addresses, and there's no sport version. The stickers still put adhesive on your skin, and the starter costs more per night than any internal dilator's.

AIRMAX: the lowest cost per night

AIRMAX, from the Dutch company Airmax BV, is a soft one-piece internal dilator: two legs sit inside the nostrils, joined by a bridge. It comes in Small and Medium only, a storage box comes with every pack, and it has been made in the Netherlands since 2005. A Sport version adds two small grip barbs.

The Classic Trial Pack, with one of each size, is £14.75 on Amazon UK, sold by Airmax BV. Its leaflet says to replace each dilator every 2 months, which makes it £0.12 a night if both sizes fit, or £0.25 if only one does. A 2-pack of one size is £16.45 (£0.14). That's the cheapest per night of anything we checked. It suits you if cost per night matters most and you're happy with something inside your nose.

The drawbacks:

• Amazon UK is the only UK seller we could confirm, and AIRMAX publishes no guarantee for UK buyers, so Amazon's returns policy applies.
• Two sizes, with no Large.
• The Trial Pack averages 3.4 out of 5 from 16,107 Amazon UK ratings. Amazon's review summary counts 86 negative mentions of staying in place out of 106, and 80 negative mentions of skin irritation out of 98, and the leaflet says it may fall out at night at first.

Mute: three sizes to try, easy to buy

Mute, made by the Australian company Rhinomed, is an internal dilator for sleep. Two soft paddles sit inside the nostrils, joined by a bridge across the septum, and each side adjusts separately. There's no adhesive, and each dilator is rated for 10 nights.

The Starter Pack holds one Small, one Medium and one Large for £14.99: £0.50 a night if all three fit, or £1.50 if only one does. Sized 3-packs are £19.99 (£0.67 a night), or £17.99 on subscription (£0.60). You can buy it from Mute's own UK store, which ships from a UK warehouse, from Amazon UK, or from the online pharmacy NowPatient. Its 30-day guarantee covers starter products bought direct. It suits you if you'd like to try three internal sizes cheaply from a shop you already use.

The drawbacks:

• If only one size fits, the Starter lasts 10 nights, and the returns policy says sized packs can't be exchanged for fit.
• Mute doesn't publish whether you send a dilator back under its guarantee, or who pays the postage.
• It averages 3.7 out of 5 from 18,659 Amazon UK ratings.

For the full comparison, see Airlift vs Mute.

Silent Mammoth: one adjustable device for two months

Silent Mammoth (Modern Mammoth Technologies) is a stainless steel wire frame coated in silicone. It sits inside the nostrils and adjusts on each side. You choose Small or Large by measuring your nose from the side: 23 mm or less is Small, and 24 mm or more is Large. There's no starter pack, a carrying case comes with it, and it has a US patent granted in 2026.

One device is £29.99 at Breath and Balance, a UK stockist, plus £3.75 delivery. The brand's FAQ says to replace it every 60 days, which is £0.50 a night (£0.56 delivered). Breath and Balance's listing says 30 uses or up to 60 days, and on 30 uses it's £1.00 a night (£1.12). Third-party sellers on Amazon UK had it at £39.00 (Large) and £42.99 (Small). It suits you if you'd rather have one adjustable device that you replace less often.

The drawbacks:

• £29.99 to £42.99 upfront for one device, and the brand and its stockist disagree on how long it lasts.
• The brand's own store sells in US dollars with no UK shipping or returns terms. Its FAQ offers a size swap or refund without published terms; Breath and Balance gives 30 days and you pay return postage.
• No published study, and 604 global Amazon ratings averaging 3.8.

Turbine: for sport, not sleep

Turbine is Rhinomed's dilator for sport: firmer than Mute, with ridged paddles and a ratchet on each side. The Starter Pack (Small, Medium and Large) is £16.99 on Mute's UK store or Amazon UK, and each device is rated for 10 uses, so £0.57 a use if all three fit. Rhinomed recommends Mute for sleep, and Turbine isn't for contact sports, water sports or swimming.

The published trials found no performance gain. In a 2017 trial part-funded by Rhinomed, neither an internal dilator nor a nasal strip changed 15 trained cyclists' power over a 20 km time trial.^[2] An independent 2021 study of 8 adults found the Turbine internal dilator didn't change breathlessness or peak performance in a cycling test.^[3]

Breathe Right: the cheapest way to test

Breathe Right is an adhesive strip, and the best-known external dilator in UK shops. On Boots' website on 27 October 2026, a 30-pack of Original Small/Medium was £13.99 (£0.47 a night) and a 26-pack of Extra Strength was £14.99 (£0.58). Each strip is single use, for up to 12 hours a day. Boots' listing says not to use it if you're allergic to latex, and Breathe Right lists Superdrug, Tesco and Sainsbury's among its other stockists.

It suits you if you want to find out cheaply whether opening your nostrils makes any difference before you spend more. For strips in more detail, see the best nasal strips for snoring in the UK and our Breathe Right alternatives guide.

Other magnetic dilators

Every magnetic system works the same basic way as Airlift's: a reusable band or clip on fresh adhesive tabs each night. Intake Breathing makes six band sizes and puts four in its starter, which costs £54.99 for 15 nights from its UK store and ships from the US. Airo, Intake and the rest are compared in our guide to the best magnetic nasal strips in the UK, and Airlift vs Intake Breathing goes head to head.

What is the most comfortable nasal dilator?

No brand has published a comparable comfort test, Airlift included, so we can't name one.

Internal devices press on the inside of the nostril. Discomfort inside the nose is the most common complaint in Mute's own reviews: 45 of the 76 reviews rated one to three stars in the review widget on its UK store mention it (a shared pool that isn't UK-only). Comfort is also the top theme in its four- and five-star reviews (107 of 338, by our keyword count). On AIRMAX's Trial Pack, Amazon's review summary tags comfort 218 times, 133 of them negative.

External devices put adhesive on your skin instead. Skin reactions do happen with adhesive strips: in a GSK-funded 28-night study of a prototype strip, four people had mild skin reactions where the strip was applied.^[4]

Sizing is the part you can control. Airlift sends five clip sizes, Mute's starter has three, AIRMAX and Silent Mammoth have two each, and Intake makes six with four in its starter. We found no evidence that a better-fitting dilator works better, but more sizes to try means less guesswork. With no comfort data anywhere, the sensible way to try is one where you can get your money back without sending anything back.

How to choose a nasal dilator

1. 1
   Inside or outside the noseInternal dilators need no adhesive but sit in your nostrils. Strips and magnetic clips stay outside and stick to your skin.
2. 2
   How many sizes you get to tryA starter with every size saves guessing. Silent Mammoth asks you to measure instead.
3. 3
   Skin and adhesiveIf your skin reacts to tape, an internal dilator avoids adhesive. If you go external, look for a latex statement.
4. 4
   Real cost per nightDivide the price by the nights the maker says it lasts, then add delivery.
5. 5
   Returns and guaranteeCheck what's covered, how long you have, and whether you need to post anything back.

Real cost over a year

These are our own sums on the prices above, for 360 nights unless stated, one person and one device-night, strip or pair of stickers a night.

AIRMAX is far cheaper over a year than anything else here. Breathe Right comes in below Airlift, and Silent Mammoth on its 60-day basis is level with Airlift's one-time route, which is Airlift's cheapest first year.

What the evidence says

We could find no published, independent study of any magnetic nasal dilator, including Airlift's, and a 2026 review by UK surgeons reached the same conclusion.^[1] That review also noted that the studies it found didn't follow people up over time, so there's little evidence on longer-term use.

Brand evidence is thin. Rhinomed's airflow figure for Mute comes from its own sponsored 2003 test of a prototype in 20 healthy adults. AIRMAX links a peer-reviewed 2013 study that isn't in our evidence library, so we quote no figures from it. We found no published study of Silent Mammoth, and the two Turbine trials found no effect.

On snoring, a 2016 review found strips made no significant difference to snoring measured in sleep labs,^[5] and a 2026 review found the same for nasal dilators.^[6] The NHS snoring page lists nasal dilators or strips that hold the nose open as one option when snoring is linked to a blocked or narrow nose. Dilators work at the front of the nose, though, and Airlift's help page says no external product can move a blockage that's structural and deep inside, such as a deviated septum.

Nasal strips vs nasal dilators covers the studies in detail, including how internal and external dilators compare and what the snoring reviews found. Our science page and do magnetic nasal strips work? go further.

Sources checked

Brand details were checked on 27 October 2026, and Turbine and Snoreeze on 28 October 2026.

1. Airlift's shop, refills, refunds, shipping, terms and help pages, and Airlift on Trustpilot.
2. AIRMAX instruction leaflet, AIRMAX FAQ, research page and AIRMAX on Amazon UK, Trial Pack and Medium 2-pack.
3. Mute Starter Pack, Mute FAQ, returns policy, research page and Mute on Amazon UK.
4. Silent Mammoth FAQ, Breath and Balance listing and refund policy, and Amazon UK Small and Large.
5. Turbine Starter Pack and Turbine FAQ.
6. Breathe Right products and FAQs, and Boots listings for Original Small/Medium 30 and Extra Strength 26.
7. Snoreeze Nasal Dilator, Snoreeze on boots.com, and Intake starter kit, UK store.
8. NHS: snoring, read 28 October 2026.

Questions people ask