The Manual Cleanser
As long-term TGG readers will know, I could natter on about skincare for HOURS. Now don't get me wrong, I love a good makeup/fashion/lifestyle chat, but when it comes to skincare? Try and stop me. My latest skincare obsession comes in the form of the Magnitone Lucid Facial Brush* - an affordable alternative to the much hyped Clarsionic and the latest product to launch within a recent trend for electrical skincare. You'll all be aware of the buzz surrounding the Clarisonic - an electronic facial brush that inspired a bit of a blogger hype a few years ago, but retails for at least £100 - the Magnitone Lucid Facial Brush retails on lookfantastic.com for half that price.
The premise of an electronic facial brush is that is cleanses and exfoliates your skin, removing product build up, dead skin cells, and deep-rooted impurities, and leaving skin feeling smooth and deeply cleansed. This in turn should prevent future breakouts and - as with manual exfoliants - makes the skin able to better absorb the benefits of consequent skincare application - masks, serums, and moisturisers etc applied after use will be more efficient and effective upon recently exfoliated skin.
With a soft brush, and two settings (sensitive and deep clean) the Magnitone is targeted towards sensitive and allergy-prone skin types, and claims to be suitable for everyday use on even the most dry and delicate skin. Fully waterproof, the brush can be used in the bath or shower as well as at the basin - I find it works best with a gel or light cream cleanser. The built in timer means that you can spend an equal amount of time on each area of your face and not have to worry about over-exfoliating. Lightweight and compact, with a battery life of two weeks and a magnetic travel charger, the Magnitone is the perfect travel companion, ensuring that your skin can benefit from its usual regime from everywhere in the world. It's also available in a choice of four very snazzy colours - need I say more??
With sensitive, blemish prone skin I've naturally been a bit wary of the idea of using an electronic exfoliator like this one. After spending my teen years scrubbing at my face with cleansers more resemblent of a foot scrub than a face wash I've done my best to avoid manual exfoliants (other than the rare and trusted gem from Aesop) and have definitely become convert of the chemic exfoliant (hello Pixi Glow). I always imagined that a facial brush would be very rough, scratchy, and not particularly pleasant to use. How wrong I was. The first time that I used this I set it to the 'sensitive' setting and was so amazed at how light, soft, and gentle it was (something akin to be lightly brushed with a feather) that I automatically turned it up to the 'deep clean' setting - which only seemed to speed up a fraction and applied the tinciest bit more pressure. Suffice to say that despite planning only to use this once or twice a week I've found myself using it on a daily basis over the past fortnight. I've definitely noticed an improvement in the texture of my skin which is feeling much smoother - and as I haven't had any major breakouts or reactions since using this I can only give it a full thumbs up from this blemish=prone, sensitive skinned gal.
If you have any questions do let me know, and I'd love to know what your experience of using electronic cleansers has been! To stay updated on future posts you can follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bloglovin - and there's still time to enter my latest giveaway!
*PR sample