My Experience with the Clarisonic Mia 1

I'm back after being very MIA with my blog! In this post, I will be sharing my experience with the Clarisonic. One reason I decided to write about my experience is because upon looking up reviews before buying the Clarisonic, I only read reviews that urged me to invest in a hundred dollar facial cleanser--none that provided me with another aspect. 

Upon purchasing the Clarisonic, I was in a hurry to try it out because as the reviews stated, in a few weeks I believed I would have  flawless skin. Amidst the excitement, I was a bit worried because I read numerous reviews about the "purging" stage, where my skin would break out because the Clarisonic would bring all the dirt in my skin to the surface before giving me my flawless skin. Despite my fear of the purging phase, I used the Clarisonic (sensitive brush head) every night, and for the first week or two, I noticed that my face would get "squeaky" clean--little did I know, my face was not supposed to be that clean (I needed to get rid of the bad oil but keep the good/natural oil in my skin). During the first and second weeks, I started to get pimples on areas of my face I never broke out in prior to using the Clarisonic (chin, philtrum). I let it pass because I thought I was experiencing the purging phase to a lesser degree. I was actually glad I wasn't getting a crazy breakout as others mentioned. 

About the third to fourth week of using the Clarisonic daily, I continued to get random pimples all over my face that would NOT go away. And to make it worse, I began to get small little bumps all over my forehead--something I like to refer to as sebum balls. These sebum balls were literally scattered all over my forehead (near the center and T-zone area). Despite stressing over the sudden appearance of these nasty sebum balls, I continued to use the Clarisonic. After about seven weeks, my face was not improving at all--I still continued to get pimples - quite a lot - and the sebum balls on my forehead continued to increase. My mom, who bought the Clarisonic around the time I did, constantly complained about how she got random pimples and sebum balls over her face after using the Clarisonic. Finally, around the eighth week I decided to stop using the Clarisonic and see how my skin would react. 

One reason I kept using the Clarisonic, despite knowing that it might not actually be working for me, was because I thought it was the most effective way to really clean my face well. I didn't think cleansing oils or face washes would be able to get rid of all my makeup, dirt, and bad oil. By this time, my skin was at its worst point and these sebum balls were not going away. I was in Korea during this time for a family vacation and had the chance to visit a dermatologist. Upon hearing what the dermatologist said and doing further research, the Clarisonic was cleaning my face all too much --it was taking out the bad and good (natural) oils in my face. Therefore, my skin produced more oil to make up for the natural oil I was constantly washing away--producing the sebum balls. She suggested that I do a skin laser treatment becauase the sebum balls were not going to go away even with time. Although I really wanted to do the skin laser treatment, I was leaving Korean in two days (the laser treatment required several sessions). Because I was unable to do the treatment, the nurse recommended an enzyme soap to use after cleansing my face. The enzyme soap was pretty much a powder wash form that foamed up as soon as you added water and lathered it up.

So upon coming back home to LA and changing up my skin care routine, my skin improved a lot. The sebum balls on my forehead have shrunk significantly and my skin improved from when I was using the Clarisonic.

This is not to say the Clarisonic is a horrible product. There are just specific skin types that work well with the Clarisonic and some that do not. According to the dermatologist, her explanation was that many electronic facial washes makes "your skin thin and very sensitive." People who had amazing experiences with the Clarisonic had tough enough skin but apparently my skin was thin and too sensitive for the Clarisonic. 

This pretty much wraps up my experience with the Clarisonic. Despite being very sensitive about my skin, I got the courage to share my experience just to provide light onto a possible side effect that may occur to someone with a similar skin type as me. 

Thanks so much for reading!