Clarisonic Mia 2 | Review, Experience, Recommendations.

I’m sitting writing this blog post in Frankfurt airport, having just come out of Duty Free. I’ve had the Clarisonic Mia for about 5 months now and was reluctant to write this review for a few reasons; all culminating around the fact that I wasn’t even sure if I liked the feckin’ thing or not. I think it’s important for me to state that this was sent to me for review consideration, and you all know that regardless of whether I’m sent a product or not, I like to review everything as if I had bought it myself, sure in the knowledge that that’s potentially what someone reading this might do. The reason it’s taken me so long to write this is because it was very hard for me to recommend something that was €100+ when I hadn’t fully formed my opinion on it, and I wanted this review to be as detailed as possible, because gurl, das esssspensive. Now, the reason I mention Duty Free (and what made me want to write about this) is because I just bought myself a brand new brush head for my Clarisonic (they’re €24 and need to be replaced every 3-4 months, by the way) and I felt that if I was going out of my way to buy a replacement brush head, then it’s a pretty good sign that I do actually love the thing.

This post probably won’t make any sense or have any clear direction but I really want to review this as best and honestly as I can, but do keep in mind that skincare works differently for everyone. The Clarisonic is essentially an electrical cleansing tool (and if you get a bright pink one like I did it may even look like a sex toy and get you quare looks going through airport security) that is meant to clean your skin 231456454321 times better than your hands. If you want to know more about the device itself, feel free to give it a google or look at their website, but I’m here to more so share my experience with the Clarisonic, what it did for me, how I use it and who I think it would be best suited to. How I use it is the simple part; for me it was every night after I used an oil based makeup remover to hot cloth cleanse off my makeup. I’d put a little blob of cleanser on the brush head and go to skincare town. In terms of cleansers, I’d recommend a gel or gentle foaming cleanser, nothing oily (I can imagine it being a nightmare to clean the brush afterwards) and nothing with exfoliating beads. The two I really liked using with the Clarisonic were the NeoStrata brightening one for pigmentation and the Bioré coal cleanser from Boots for like a fiver – nothin’ fancy.

So, for the first week, 2 weeks, even month of using this thing I thought it was fabulous. You definitely notice an immediate result in the feel of your skin, it feels so soft and any areas of dry or lumpy skin are buffed away beautifully. I never experienced a “purging” phase whereby my skin acted out horribly, but I will say that after the first month I was hoping for slightly better results in terms of dealing with my blemishes. After the first month and for the following two, when asked about the Clarisonic by colleagues, my mam, friends, etc my reply was an unenthusiastic “meh”. At the time I felt that yes it was nice, but didn’t provide miraculous results so therefore definitely not worth the money – oh, how I was wrong. SO wrong. Fast forward to October and I haven’t had my Clarisonic with me in France for over a month. I’ve been using the exact same cleansers/moisturizers/masks as I would have before with my Clarisonic so the products haven’t changed, but my skin definitely has. After the first week of arriving in France my skin started to freak out and go back to how it was 6 months ago before I ever even held a Clarisonic. My pores looked larger, my skin didn’t look quite as smooth, it felt super flakey around my nose and my blemishes were awful. I’m talking in the past tense but this is still very much an issue, and I’m not a fan at all. I feel like the fact that I’ve really noticed a change in my skin since I stopped using it, twinned with the fact that I bought a brand spanking new brush head is quite telling that it actually did work for me, I just maybe didn’t realise or appreciate the results at the time.

Is it worth the €130? Not everyone has that amount of money to drop on a cleansing brush, but I will say that if you really, really like to invest in your skincare then this could be perfect for you and it might change your life. You might, on the other hand, be one of those people who see absolutely no difference in which case that would obviously be poo and a waste of money. It's hard to say. The Clarisonic isn’t for everyone, and it won’t work for everyone but what I will say is; if you have really good skin already then don’t bother buying this because you just won’t notice the difference. Similarly, if you have a lot of issues with acne (I’m talkin’ prescription meds and Acutane users) then also don’t bother, because you won’t see the results you’re looking for either and I’d recommend spending the €100 in actual products rather than tools – I just don’t think this is a quick fix for people with severe acne. However, if you’re somewhere in between, have some skin concerns, do regularly suffer from blemishes (but not full scale acne) and/or have very dry skin then I think this could really work well for you. I hope that “review” made sense. It worked wonders for my dry areas, worked quite well on blemishes particularly on my cheeks and always made my skin feel clean (but never tight), smooth and luminous – it’s just a pity I only realised this when I wasn’t using it for a month. I got so many compliments on my skin this summer, and I will admit I definitely saw an improvement, I think I was just being very hard on it since it is such an expensive product. If you were thinking of trying it, I’d recommend getting it if you have a voucher to put towards it or asking for it as a very generous Christmas present. Since it worked so well on dry areas it could be brilliant for those of you who suffer from really dry skin in winter with the change in weather. If you’re unsure about it or don’t think it would work for you then continue with your own skincare routine if you’re happy with it already. I’ll admit that I’ve seriously grown to love this little guy and I can’t express how excited I am to pop the new brush head on it tonight and cleanse away!