TOOL UP
Smart updates are taking beauty gadgets to the next level, from the dermaroller that won’t tear your skin to a modernised gua sha.
1 Facegym Multi-sculpt High Performance Gua Sha, £45
The home of face-sculpting massage has put its high-tech stamp on the Chinese technique of ‘skin scraping’, by fashioning a gua sha from stainless steel. The extra weight, plus six different sides to play with and a tutorial to follow from your phone, helps to thoroughly depuff, define and release locked-in stiffness.
2 Lumity Skin Gym Pro Ice Roller, £35
A brilliantly simple alternative to jade or quartz rollers, this can be kept in the fridge or freezer and swept over the skin to boost blood flow, calm redness and temporarily tone and tighten. It stays cold long enough for a five-minute pick-me-up or a longer 15-minute treatment and feels utterly delicious.
3 Sarah Chapman Skinesis Meso-melt Infusion System, £138
Home dermarolling Red can get behind. Where standard steel needles combined with the wrong skincare can cause micro-tears and irritation, Chapman’s roller releases needles of solidified peptides and hyaluronic acid which dissolve into the skin, and comes with a complementary serum, neatly skipping around both issues and triggering enviable plumpness and glow.
4 Jovs Venus Pro for Currentbody Skin, £299
Intense Pulsed Light (IPL) can remove hair or rejuvenate the skin; China’s biggest-selling beauty tool does both. You can tackle hair in 10 minutes from face-to-toe (though we took a little longer to start with), while the skin attachment boosts collagen production and treats pigmentation. The one rub is that it’s not yet suitable to use on very dark skin or pale, red or grey hair, though Currentbody has other devices that are.
5 Cellreturn Platinum LED Mask, £1,899
With technology derived from NASA research into near-infrared and wound healing, this powerful LED device has red, blue, pink and express settings, which tackle concerns from skin laxity to open pores and acne. The side-effects are just as compelling. Beauty tech entrepreneur Lily Earle, who brought the Koreanmade device to the UK, found her sleep improved and her migraine attacks were less painful. She’s now looking at the effect the blue setting has on SAD.