and no, im not joking! Read on to find out why! ♥
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the first time i used my clarisonic, time went by sooo fast! normally you spend 20 secs on forehead, 20 on nose & chin and then 10 secs for each side of the cheek. and literally, after the first 20 secs, i wasnt even done my whole forehead (and no, my forehead isnt that big!!!) haha, so im not sure what went wrong there.. i think its cause im so used to taking my time rubbing in my cleanser, making it foam etc so that it actually feels like its cleaning.. but with the clarisonic, all you have to do is gently (with a little bit of pressure) move it in circles across your forehead. so after i failed the first minute with my clarisonic, i decided to give it another test run... and it worked much better :)
so here's what i learned...
If you want to just skip right to the review and my thoughts on the Clarisonic...
just keep scrolling down! :D
Pinkbox Makeup's clarisonic guide for the "first timers" :)
1. charge clarisonic for 24 hours (yes we hate it, but you gotta do it!)
2. remove as much makeup as you can (especially eye makeup) with makeup remover
3. wet both your face and the brush slightly
4. apply a dot of cleanser on brush, as well as on your cheeks, nose and chin (i do this because the first area i cleanse with the clarisonic is my forehead.. after 20 seconds, i feel like the cleanser is used up. but there isnt enough time to apply more onto the brush so i just put it right on my face)
5. push the button, hear it beep and put it to your forehead :)
6. move the brush in small circular motions.. you dont need to push too hard, nor do you need to circle an area too much. key point is, keep the brush moving! cover your whole forehead quickly and then keep repeating left to right (or right to left) until the next beep
7. move onto your nose & chin, make sure you get the nose real good if you have blackheads! (i focus more on the sides of my nose as thats where my pores are bigger)
8. next two beeps are for your cheeks, same method, keep the brush moving!
9. when the clarisonic stops, you're done! hopefully you covered your whole face on your first try! if not, dont worry.. you can push the button again and finish up. just dont use it for too long on your face or else you're going to end up over-exfoiliating and dry out your skin.
10. rinse your face and feel how smooooth it is!
11. pat your face dry with a clean towel and apply moisturizer. PAT, dont rub!
12. rinse brushhead with water. (because i use foundation almost everyday, i like to add a drop of my The body shop tea tree oil cleanser or my Burts bees anti blemish cleanser to help get rid of any makeup remaining on the bristles. these cleansers also have antibiotic properties that help keep my brush clean :D)
dirty brush :(
main thing to note, is to keep the brush moving. you dont want to over-exfoiliate one area. i learned this the hard way from over-exfoiliating my nose area because i wanted to get rid of all the blackheads. now its going through a dry patch :(
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Now that we cleared up how to use it, heres my initial impression
1. This felt really good on my face, like a little massage :D
2. other brushes ive used are definitely not comparable.. i think i must have sensitive skin because all the other brushes i've tried have hurt my face! no matter how soft i push those brushes, it feels like im scratching my face :( however.. the clarisonic is completely different and i was surprised! i think its because the bristles move back and forth so fast (over 300x per second!!) that you just dont feel anything but a nice vibration :)
3. I used their "gentle hydro cleanser" and there was no foaming whatsoever (.. i like my cleansers to foam). as a result, it didnt "feel" like it was cleaning as much as i wanted it to
4. The real difference comes when you rinse your face.. once i splashed some water on my face, i immediately felt my skin was super smooth.. almost as if i had exfoiliated super hard with my st. ives scrubs (which i found out was horrible for your skin because you are just scratching it!) anyways, i couldnt stop feeling it and i mustve rinsed my face like 20 times hahaha!
5. Face was a little pink after but nowhere near my super red face after using an exfoiliator.
6. i feel that my moisturizer got absorbed faster than usual
7. My acne and acne scars are still here, although i didnt expect them to be gone after one use haha
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Pretty much the same, had a great little massage on my face and my skin felt super smooth afterwards. I then applied moisturizer and primer as per usual.
Here's the part that i love the most! i used one 'half' pump (meaning i didnt push the pump all the way down) of my revlon photoready foundation and applied it onto my face as usual with my ELF flat top kabuki brush. normally, it takes another 'half' pump to fully cover my face but this time around, i didnt have to use that extra pump! i was so surprised at how smoothly my foundation went on.. it even covered up my blemishes quite nicely so i only had to use concealer on the big trouble spots!
note: prior to using the clarisonic, my blemishes really red and hard to cover. in addition, my acne scars were very dry and even after covering them, you could still see them due to the dryness and flakyness... gross? i know :(
however, after using the clarisonic twice, my acne scars were no longer dry and flaky! of course, they were still there, but they were 100x more easier to cover which i loveeeed :D although you could still see all my spots and scars, my skin felt a lot smoother to touch and that, is why i loveeee my clarisonic so much right now :D
picture time!
the left column is with no makeup applied (eek!) and the right side is with one 'half' pump of revlon photoready foundation.
and the tools i used to do this daily
my ELF powder brush & my revlon photoready in nude
see how dense it is? and its super super super soft as well!
this is in comparison with my Quo duo fibre stippling brush.
i used to use the Quo brush daily to apply foundation, but now i find that the denser ELF brush does a better job of giving me a smoother finish.. it definitely provides better coverage!
note: as you might know, my bf got me sigma makeup brushes for an early xmas present! in the package, i got the F80 flat top kabuki brush *yay* which is supposed to be amazing for applying foundation! i will be comparing that with the ELF powder brush after my finals are over :) i cant wait!!
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impression as of today
i love it! every usage feels like a mini spa :D however, i would say that this is no miracle worker. My acne and scaring are still here (although slightly reduced), but my face is definitely much smoother and softer. i find that blemishes are much easier to cover up now that they are not dry and flaky. Also, the large pores on the sides of my nose seem to have gotten smaller and i feel that my skintone has also improved. Previously, the lower parts of my cheeks suffer from redness, but i find that it is more pink than red now :) So yes, im very happy with the results! even if they arent 'life turning, acne disappearing' magic, i can happily say that my skin has improved :)
on another note, im almost done my gently hydro cleanser and im going to be testing out Philosophy's purity cleanser! *yay* heard great things about this and hope it'll help reduce my blemishes :)
Conclusion
overall, i would say that if you have the extra money to spend (or someone to hint it to for christmas :P) and want to step up your cleansing routine to the next level, then the clarisonic will become your best friend and help you get smoother, softer skin.
On the other hand, i wouldnt really say this is a miracle worker in that blemishes and acne do not 'magically disappear' (they usually never do anyways haha). so if you're tight on money, or dont have very many blemishes to start off with anyways, i would recommend that you pass on this for now and possibly step up your cleaning routine by maybe adding in a toner, a soft exfoiliator once a week and some deep cleansing masks to really clean deep into those pores!
and for those who just like to skim through:
if you have the extra $$, suffer from uneven skintone, dry patches, acne, blemishes & scarring (thats hard to cover up!) - i would recommend you give this a try! the resulting smoother & more even skin allows for you to easily cover up any smaller blemishes.
however, if you're tight on money, have pretty good skin anyways (apart from small blemishes), then i think that this wont give "as" much of a difference. yes, you'll get cleaner and smoother skin, but you could achieve that using other methods as well :)
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