Like a lot of beauty junkies out there, I’m a sucker for the latest, greatest – and anyone with a beauty mag subscription will tell you the latest, greatest in skincare recently has been the nearly ubiquitous Clarisonic cleansing brushes! It seems every beauty store online carries them and every subject on Intothegloss/celebrity skincare interview features these handy and admittedly beautifully made little handhelds.
Clarisonic comes in many flavors and varieties: mine is the pink Mia2, which I got because it has different speeds, is travel friendly, cheaper compared to Pro/Plus, and has a cool magnetic charger. I loved the feeling of a high tech gadget sitting on my beauty counter waiting for me to activate it every night. The device feels heavy in a high quality way while the waterproof plastic feels sturdy and durable. The brush head I use is for sensitive skin as I do not want to overexfoliate my skin, which is one of the most common bad things a lot of beauty junkies do.
Like many others, when I first started using the Clarisonic, I started breaking out which they say is normal since it just means the deep dwelling gunk is starting to come to the surface. I noticed after 2 weeks of use that my skin did feel “cleaner” and serums that I used after washing my skin absorbed faster, but my skin was becoming REALLY dry! I think this might have to do with two things:
1. Using a Clarisonic with a cleanser is only effective if the cleanser foams, otherwise the brush kind of just tugs at your skin which isn’t good. Clarisonic will increase the foaming in most cleansers and these foaming agents are what dry out skin.
2. Over-exfoliating skin and allowing cleansers to be more “powerful” with a Clarisonic boost is like washing a newborns skin with harsh soap – your skin just doesn’t need that much washing or that strong of a product.
Overall, I just don’t think it does “change” skin that much. Every time I hear someone say this changed their skin, I am curious how much of it has to do with them buying the hype and how much is actual performance. I actually see people buy cleansers based on how “Clarisonic friendly” it is, as though cleansers that were not created with the intention of being used with a Clarisonic are not good. This bothers me because cleansers that work well with Clarisonic are mostly foaming cleansers which again- dry out skin. This does’t mean they’re great for oily skin as they can strip our natural oils and cause skin to overproduce sebum, leading to even more oily complexions.
At the end of the day, I think this device is good for exfoliating once or twice a week with a regular cleanser but anything more can potentially be detrimental. How do you use your Clarisonic? Do you love it or is it meh?