A £12.99 Clarisonic from ALDI?!?!

Something new for you all today – a review of a brand new beauty gadget, at a bargain price of course!

And yep, you read it right, Aldi has brought out their own version of the Clarisonic.

We got a sneak peek:

What do you get for your money?

Here are the facts, the Visage Facial Cleanser is £12.99, and it’ll be in store on Thursday the 16th of March – but you can pre order it with free delivery here. As with all Aldi Specialbuys once it’s gone, it’s gone – and we imagine this will be incredibly popular at this price.

It’s battery operated, and it comes with two AA batteries. What makes this special is the sheer amount of accessories it comes with, for £12.99 you get three facial brushes, one body brush, three massage attachments, plus a stand, the batteries and the machine itself.

The cheapest real deal Clarisonic we can find online is a whopping £125 – so this is about a tenth of the price. A single replacement Clarisonic head is £22 (just FYI).

How do I use it?

It’s extremely easy to set up, just pull the end off the handle and pop in two batteries, and change the heads over by pulling the old one off and clicking on a new one. Easy peasy.

It couldn’t be more simple to operate, it’s just an on/off switch, and only one speed.

Now, the real test

We gave the brushes a try first. Now – I’ve never used a facial brush of any type before, my usual cleansing method is pretty old school, I like a cream cleanser like Liz Earle Cleanse & Polish and a Christy flannel, nothing too fancy.

I tried the medium facial brush at first with the No7 hot cloth cleanser I’m using at the moment, and it was quite underwhelming at first. When you use a flannel it sweeps away the cleanser as you wipe, but this made it all stay in roughly the same place. The brush just vibrates, it doesn’t move or oscillate like the Clarisonic does – just FYI.

I soon realised I was definitely using the wrong type of cleanser and swapped to a sample of Clinique extra gentle cleansing foam. The lighter texture definitely allowed the vibrations of the bristles to work more efficiently, and I ended up with a very clean feeling face.

You’re given three “levels” of brushes, sensitive, medium and dermabrasion, that are marked S, M and H (presumably meaning hard) on the back of each attachment. The medium level brush I used on my skin wasn’t particularly soft, it definitely felt like I’d had a good scrub afterwards. I don’t think I’d be able to use the dermabrasion brush, but I’m not used to physical exfoliation at all.

Now for the body brush.

The largest attachment in the box is designed for your body, and this was my favourite one. I used it with my normal shower gel on my arms and shoulders and it was fine, I guess. But where it really shone was on exfoliating my legs. Before I shave I usually put a body scrub from The Body Shop all over my lower legs and rub it in with my hands. It works ~a bit~ but it’s nothing to write home about, however when I combined it with the body brush my legs were SO SMOOTH. Even before I’d shaved them, crazy right?

If you get razor bumps or ingrown hairs on your legs (or elsewhere) definitely give this a try – my shins are soft soft soft.

Massage

Unlike the Clarisonic, the Aldi facial cleanser comes with three massage attachments. Now, who knows if facial massage actually works, but Lisa Eldridge (who looks ridiculously young for 42) is a strong proponent of it, so here goes.

The video above is a good introduction to the techniques of facial massage, despite the fact that at the beginning she says The Mighty Boosh is good(!!?!?!). But if you’re lazy, you could use a machine to do it for you. Before you start massaging you’ll want to cover your face in something slippery – I used The Body Shop’s Vitamin E serum in oil. Now lets get to work.

There’s a head with bobbles all over it, a head with three bobbles at a point and a sponge head. Now, I used the first head all over my lower face, jaw and neck. It feels weirdly tickly, but go with it. I then used the three bobble head on all the places I worry about getting wrinkles, my crows feet, smile lines, between my eyebrows etc. I found both of the hard heads too painful to use on my forehead really, which is where I used the sponge. It felt pretty nice – and if I start looking 10 years younger from vibrating a sponge on my face I will let you know.

The verdict

This cleansing brush is perfect for you to get if you can’t decide whether you want to buy a Clarisonic but you aren’t willing to stump up the £125 to get one. The major downfalls of the Aldi brush are:

1. It’s not rechargable, and nobody likes buying batteries.

2.  The manual says you’re supposed to replace the brush heads every 2-3 months, but who knows if Aldi will ever stock these heads again.

3. It’s not waterproof, so if you wanted to use it in the shower rather than the bath, I’m sorry.

However, it is only £12.99, you get so many fun attachments with it (I definitely prefer that massage ones and the body brush to the facial options), it has a three year warrantee and it does the job.

What do you think, are you going to pick one up? Click here to buy it online.

Bronni Hughes

Hey! I’m Bronni and I’m a financial journalist and deals hunter in my mid 20s. I’m really into cats, pop music, the internet and barely substantiated celebrity gossip.

bronni.co.uk