Personal Microderm - Microdermabrasion at Home

* The product in this review is provided by SkincareRX.com

The Personal Microderm *, as the name suggests, is a light-weight electric "mircodermabrasion at home" that allows one to polish and resurface the skin "the very same way a professional microdermabrasion procedure does". I wasn't familiar with the procedure but with a few Google search and their instructional video, it turns out to be very comprehensible. Now, let me explain its working mechanism while walking you through the basic components of the tool.

The first and immediate part of the Personal Microderm that makes contact with your skin (not include the handle, of course) is the exfoliated disk. The disk, which is covered with fine aluminum oxide and attached to a motor, spins and "sand" away the dead skin cells when you power on the tool. A piece of donut-shaped black felt is placed under the disk to catches the dust (dust is composed of mainly human skin anyway) and stops it from entering/clogging the interior.

Of course, the disk isn't the only part of the Personal Microderm (or it would be just called Personal Face Sander). A clear screw-on cap with an opening on the top is placed on exterior of the tool, leveling with the disk so while the disk is resurfacing your skin, the tool would also create a suction that vacuum away your "dust" and massage (sort of) the face a bit.

There are two different caps,corresponding to the two sizes of disk (the bigger one for cheeks forehead,and smaller one for harder-to-reach areas like the side of the nose) Beside the sizes, there is also a color variations within the disks: The finest blue disk for sensitive skin, medium/normal green disk for normal skin and coarse red disk for tougher areas.The blue and green one comes with the set and the red disks are available to be purchased separately.The last part (not pictured) is an adaptor that connects the tool to a power supply. Compared to the actual tool, this is somewhat heavy and not great for carrying around. 

To Use: After I got the basic concept, the instruction to use is rather easy. All I need to do is to have every parts (filter, disk and cap) securely attached to the body, power it on and run through it through, on clean and stretched (use one hand to taunt the area that I am working on)and in stroke-like motions. (Avoid hovering in one spot and using it on the delicate eye area), then finishing off with a simple rinse and moisturizer.

My Thoughts: Since what the tool does is essentially sanding and vacuuming the skin, there is a novel sensation that's not necessarily painful or bothersome (Then again, I don't have a very low pain threshold).In fact, I find it a lot less irritating compared to the few drugstore facial exfoliators I have tried while being far more effect when it comes to getting rid of the dull skin.For the 3 weeks I have had the tool (I started with the blue for-sensitive-skin disk then switched to the green one, which seem to perform better polishing away my acne marks), it has been performing pretty well in terms of improving skin textures and evening out some hyperpigmentaion (mainly acne scar). As of getting rid of fine line and spots, I can't use the tool on those since they are located at the below-eyebrow-over-cheek-bones dangerous zone.

Overall:It works.I do think that for most people, $178 is a rather expensive price to pay but if people swear by Clarisonic brush (come on, it's a brush, albeit a very soft one) or those $200 hair iron. I don't see why not Personal Microderm.It's gentle(when used as instructed)effective and rather unique in the market.

P.S. On the SkincareRX page, as well as the video, they suggested two products to used in conjunction with the personal microderm, "a cell renewal serum and gentle skin resurfacing cream" . I personally think that you should just use whatever is in your normal skincare routine, maybe skip/use exfoliator less often, so that your skin doesn't have too much to adapt.