OK, so I've been remiss in posting, but I figure ... no one reads this crap but me anyway, so what's the dif? Wait, correction ... me and my baby sister. Yes, among all the fabulous friends and loving family members I have, my baby sister is the ONLY one loyal enough to endure each and every episode of my skincare spewage, solely because it's important to me. True, my fabulous brother-in-law tries (best he can) to stomach my beauty rants as often as he can but, well ... he does have his manhood to protect. So, that's why I have elected my baby sister as The Best Baby Sister (and nonsensical blog supporter) in the World! Her reward: she gets to be my first guest reviewer. What a prize, huh? I'm such a giver. Inspiration: I recently had one of the most beautiful women I have ever known ask my opinion of the Clarisonic Skin Care System. Now at first I was annoyed, as I am when gorgeous people pretend to need help being more attractive, but then it occurred to me ... maybe I have a rare opportunity to affect the lives of poor beautiful people and make them richer. I mean, it can't be easy to be them, right? Only ... oh, GOD ... I don't actually know anything about this product. BUT my baby sister does. Ha ha, 'lil sis to the rescue! Here goes, written by none other than the wonderful, beautiful, Air Force veteran and newest college graduate in my family, Ms. Rebecca Shelton ... *Product Review: Clarisonic Skincare Brush
Okay, let me begin this review by saying that I’ve never written a review before. And, that’s mostly because I’m a bit of a pessimist, so I rarely ever know what I like; I only know what I don’t. But, on the plus side, I really don’t have that many negative things to say about the Clarisonic, so I guess that must be a fairly good sign. I bought the Clarisonic Plus system about two and a half years ago, on sale for about $200 (if I remember correctly). It included four cleansers and scrubs and a Clarisonic Body Brush Head. The cleansers and scrubs were okay. They weren’t anything to write home about and they weren’t natural products, but I didn’t buy the system for them anyways, so I just considered them to be extras (you know, like “free” samples). The body brush is pretty good though. However, I rarely ever use it for my body. This is going to sound weird, but I actually use it on my lips and it does a really good job of exfoliating them. I use it with a little bit of lip scrub. Yeah, the vibrations are so strong that they make your face feel kind of numb, but it’s worth the slight discomfort (if you can even call it that), because it scrubs way better than the regular facial brush.
While I’m on the topic of the facial brush, I should probably tell y’all more about what the Clarisonic does for the face. I originally bought it because when I moved to L.A. my skin started breaking out like crazy. I’d read good reviews of it and was hoping for a miracle. In all honesty, it didn’t deliver one, but it’s not all bad. I like that it runs for exactly two minutes, so you get a perfectly timed facial cleansing experience. It has three speeds and I believe that you can actually change the time to one minute, but I’ve kept mine at two minutes and the highest speed for the whole time I’ve had it. I like a good hard scrub, so I see no point in turning it down. I buy the brush heads for normal skin (which scrub well enough, but they could have bristles that are a little bit stronger). However, I just found out that they recently came out with a Deep Pore Cleansing brush head, so I’ll be trying that soon. It does leave your face feeling clean and fairly soft, but it didn’t really do much to clear up my skin. Topical antibiotics and leaving L.A. helped a whole lot more.
On the negative side, I rarely ever use my Clarisonic any more, mostly because the brush heads are so darn expensive to replace ($25 for one, $40 for two). Shoot, I could buy a lip gloss for that and still have money left over. And, since I am a lip gloss addict, I usually do end up choosing the lip gloss over the brush heads when I go to buy them. Consequently, it can sometimes take me months to replace them. Plus, like I said, it doesn’t work any miracles and it’s one extra step that I don’t always have time for in the morning (or at night when I’m tired).
So, I know the question that most people have about the Clarisonic: Is it worth all of that money ($150-225, depending on which system you choose)? Well, I guess that kind of depends on how much money you’ve got lying around. If $200 isn’t a big expenditure for you, then yeah, it’s pretty decent, so I’d say it’s probably worth the money. But, if you have to save up for a while or skip some meals in order to afford it, then no, it’s probably not worth the money. I’m definitely not dissatisfied with my purchase, but in hindsight, the money could have gone to something more useful. If you have the money to easily spare, I say buy one of the smaller Clarisonics, like the Mia (they’re less expensive, travel friendly and they come in cuter colors). Then just buy the body brush head (if you like a good lip scrub or you need some elbow/knee exfoliation) and maybe the deep pore cleansing head, separately. If you don’t have the money to spare, you might try the Neutrogena Deep Clean Wave. I had one before I got the Clarisonic and it’s similar, because it also vibrates and it cleans well (you can actually see the dirt that comes off of your face, which is not the case with the Clarisonic). But, it’s a lot less expensive ($15) and you can buy it at the drug store.
Well, I hope this long-winded review (sorry about that) was helpful. Oh yeah, and if I have to give the Clarisonic a numerical score, I’ll give it … 3 Stars.
Clarisonic Mia Sonic Cleansing System - Blue
Neutrogena Wave Original Vibrating Power Cleanser
Clarisonic Clarisonic(R) Plus Pink Clarisonic Plus - Pink
