The Face Sander

So I usually buy myself a Christmas gift every year. It became habit a long time ago post-college, when I was single and my dad, who hated shopping and had no idea how to buy presents for a 20-something woman, would just cut me a check at Christmastime. I like it when other people give me presents still, but it's kind of a fun tradition for me. I usually just get myself something off my Amazon wishlists or pick out some sweaters or something practical and necessary.

This year, I gifted myself the Clarisonic Mia, which uses a brush on a pulsating head to gently scrub your pores free of dirt. It's gotten rave reviews and seems like a pretty solid investment for someone who sort of obsesses over her gross blackhead-y pores like I do.

I actually have been saving up for this thing for a while. I'd been considering one since last spring or so, but found it hard to justify buying a face washing implement that costs over $100. I mean, it is not a necessity, it's purely for vanity and probably only gets rave reviews because of the placebo effect women experience when they put something pastel and vibrating on their faces in the shower.

With that in mind, for the past few months I've been squirrelling away my Discover Cashback points. One of the rewards, once you've reached $85 worth of points, is a $100 Sephora gift card. You see? As luck would have it, I went over that amount when my statement closed this past Tuesday, and I also got a $15 off coupon in the mail from Sephora over the weekend. Score!

So I more or less got the Mia for free, save for tax.

Here is my new face sander:

I had to charge it overnight (it arrived via UPS on Friday) so I didn't get to use it until I showered this morning. I think I'll need to use it routinely with a consistent cleanser for a week or two to get a better impression of it, but it wasn't half bad. My skin felt pretty soft afterward, although I will say on first use the bristles kind of stung. Not in a totally bad way, as weird as that sounds, but just like "hey you are using pulsating bristles on a body part you usually don't use pulsating bristles on."

I'm a sucker for a good cleanser, so I splurged on small bottles of Philosophy's Purity and Fresh's Soy Face Cleanser. The Clarisonic cleanser came with the Mia, and the Murad cleanser was a bonus sample.

So far I've only tried the Clarisonic cleanser, which seems fine. I'm most curious about the Fresh cleanser because of course it's the most expensive so probably I will love it.