Firstly, let me start by saying that as usual I have not been paid or encouraged to write this review by the company and I purchased this product with my own money. However, I did find it on the clearance shelf at Boots which means that it was, of course, discounted. Hooray!
The Neutrogena Wave is a product which I have been interested in for quite some time. With famous faces advertising it such as Vanessa Hudgens and more recently Hayden Panettiere plus the fact that Neutrogena is the skincare brand most recommended by dermatologists, it’s surprising that I hadn’t tried their range before! Nonetheless, I was wandering around Boots whilst on a weekend away with my grandparents a few weeks ago, and when I spotted that this product had been popped in the sale aisle I had to have it. Usually retailing at £9.99 (and available at www.boots.com) I managed to get it at a steal for just £5 which was amazing actually as I only had a five pound note in my purse, courtesy of constantly buying products to review...
So, what does the brand claim? Well, here is television ad...
Then this is what Ulta (www.ulta.com) has to say about the product...
‘Neutrogena Wave Original Vibrating Power-Cleanser will transform your daily cleansing routine and give you super soft, super clean skin. The dermatologist-tested power cleanser is battery-operated and has been clinically proven to perform better than ordinary manual cleansers. At the click of a button, the gentle vibrating motion massages tingly cleansing foam deep into pores to remove more dirt, oil and make-up than ordinary cleansing. The softly textured pads gently exfoliate your skin. After just one use, your skin will be softer and smoother. The Power-Cleanser is water-resistant and can be used in the shower.’
Included in the box for the Neutrogena Wave Duo, I received the machine itself (already filled with batteries) and 20 of the cleanser pads. Not bad!
How does it work? Well, it’s actually really simple. You take one of the cotton-wool cleanser pads already prepared with just the right amount of cleanser on, and you apply it straight to the circular surface of the Wave. Then you just turn it on and apply the pad to your face. There are two settings, one which works with slower vibrations for a daily cleanse and the other which works a bit harder on skin giving a more thorough deep-clean which I’ve been using every three days. All you do is move the pad in a circular motion across your face and once you are finished just rinse off the cleanser. Job done!
So the first time I used it, I learnt the hard way to remember that cleansers like this are not intended for make-up removal, but work better on a relatively clean face. I had my make-up on from that day, (foundation, eye make-up and all) when I began working the pad across my face. I’m not saying this product doesn’t remove make-up. But what does happen is that once you have placed the pad onto the surface of your face and turn it on, it pulls the make-up from that area to then be spread across the rest of the visage. After I had finished with the Wave I pulled off the black and brown pad (now covered with concealer, powder and mascara) and flicked it into the bin. However, I realised that my skin still felt as if it had make-up on, clogging up my pores so I suspiciously whipped out a make-up wipe to discover that most of my make-up had only been spread around, rather than removed.
I am not complaining though as nowhere in the product claim does it state that this is to be used for make-up removal. The next time I used it, I had already removed my make-up with Ultrabland by Lush (£6.10 available at www.lush.com) and experienced much better results.
I loved the feeling of the vibrations on my face and afterwards I felt so fresh and clean. My pores really did appear smaller and less visible and I have had fewer break-outs since using the Wave, so the product really does live up to its advertising! On the other hand, I’m not convinced that this is due to the quality of the formula provided in the pads but rather to the technology of the vibrations which are specifically designed to massage the skin into relaxing the entrance to the pores before the foaming product is supposed to get in really deep to flush out all the bad stuff. The formula doesn’t foam as much as I would expect of a foaming product, which I guess is kind of a good thing for me as I much prefer cream cleansers... Thirty Neutrogena Deep Cleansing Refill Pads can be purchased for £5.10 in Boots stores and at www.boots.com, although I have been experimenting with a couple of other cleansers, purely because I’m unsure of the benefits of the pads themselves.
I have been using the Cleanse and Polish Hot Cloth Cleanser by Liz Earle (£13.25 at www.uk.lizearle.com) with the Neutrogena Wave and have experienced great results. Although this is a cream cleanser and hence does not foam at all I feel like thanks to the Wave the product is getting further down into my pores, giving my skin a kind of deep-clean. I do this by wetting my face with warm water, before smoothing on the cleanser. Then I apply a regular cotton pad (which can be found at www.boots.com for £1.01) to the Wave and run it under hot water. I move the Neutrogena Wave around the different areas of my face in a circular motion, then once I am done with that I begin to gently polish off the remainder with the muslin cloth provided by Liz Earle. This makes me feel so pampered and really is as if I’ve been able to bring affordable yet luxurious spa treatments into my own home.
I guess the only real downsides to this product are how careful you have to be with it around the eyes and the fact that it can be quite difficult to use around the nose. My nose is where I get most of my blemishes and where my pores appear larger and darker, but it was quite difficult to get in and around the sides at the corner of my nose which made me feel like various nooks and crannies were left untouched.... having said that, I have usually smoothed these areas with my cleanser by hand and scrub them away with the cloth afterwards, so it isn’t as if those crevices are being completely neglected.
Basically, I’m really impressed by the Neutrogena Wave. The fact that it can be used in the shower is also great for me, as sometimes I might be too tired to go ahead with a massively long night-time skin regime, but this way I can grab it and be finished in three minutes whilst cleaning the rest of my body. The vibrations make me feel so relaxed and I’m sure I’m not imagining it, but I’ve been sleeping so much better since I started using this product just before bed! Plus, my moisturiser seems to be sinking in better whilst I’m asleep and my foundation appears to be applying much smoother recently, although I couldn’t say whether this is down to the Wave or down to the ‘polish’ part of the Cleanse and Polish regime.
Neutrogena are obviously onto something good here and they seem to have realized that as they are currently working on releasing a number of other Wave related products across the globe as we speak. The USA in particular can boast the release of the new Neutrogena Wave Sonic which works in a similar way but with a rotating head which is currently retailing at $15.99 and can be seen at www.neutrogenawave.com, plus a number of new formula pads which I am very excited to try out due to my uncertainty of the default pads provided with purchase of the Wave itself.
Overall, a great product with great technology... well done Neutrogena, just keep up the good work in developing it further J
Let me know what your experience had been with this product and how you’ve been using it... any tips and tricks welcome as always!
gabriellasofia
So I know it’s been a long time since I promised this blog, but here it is! My review of Marie Claire’s Inspire and Mentor evening of Getting into Beauty with Liz Earle...
It was Wednesday the 11th of May and I woke up feeling rough. After eating a ‘bad prawn’ a couple of nights before I was absolutely gutted thinking I wouldn’t make it. I had originally planned to get the 11.50am train to London even though the event didn’t actually start until 6.30pm, but this was because I know my skill levels in terms of navigating areas I’m not familiar with and didn’t want to get so lost that I might miss the whole thing. And I’d planned to mooch the shops for a little while too! However, due to my food poisoning, I was vomiting at that time and had to lie in bed for a couple of hours to prevent myself from keeling right over. Not the best way to feel on a day when you are hoping to meet a potential future employer. But, you know, I’m a trooper and managed somehow to yank myself out of bed, crawl over to the mirror and begin applying a face of make-up. Due to my sickly pallor I realised it was best to go all out with the bronzer to make myself appear a little less of a corpse.
Having missed my morning train, I shelled out nearly £25 for a new ticket and managed to catch a train at around 3.00pm. I slept on the journey and when I arrived in Euston I felt much better, success! So the event was to take place at the Charlotte Street Hotel located quite near to Goodge Street station. This actually ended up being a million times easier for me to find than I imagined as Goodge Street and Euston are just a couple of stops away from one another on my most highly frequented line, the Northern line. I arrived nearly an hour early, so I went and bought a Coke in KFC. Classy, I know.
The hotel was absolutely beautiful. I thought it was a restaurant upon arrival as there were tables located outside the front of the hotel under a canopy, but I soon realised that this was due to the expensive hotel bar being located close to the front of the building... this meant that cool City Slicker Londoners could sit outside with champers in hand reminding me how cool it looks to smoke... (not that I ever would.) The hotel reminded me a little of a members only club which I was fortunate enough to visit for my aunt’s birthday last year, in that it was full of plush sofas in homely yet luxurious and expensive looking lounges. The corridors and staircases were narrow, yet were carpeted thick and were surrounded by autumn-coloured walls making the whole atmosphere very warm and comfortable.
Heading down to the basement where the event was to take place I spotted a group of ladies of all ages dressed to impress in a vast array of different styles. There was one girl with a face painted with Burlesque style make-up, whilst another wore a long cotton maxi dress with a denim jacket. Then I spotted a younger girl perhaps just a little older than me wearing bright pink jeans with a vivid blue cardigan (clearly no stranger to the colour-blocking trend) and an older lady with a mid-length summer dress in black and white. I loved how different everyone looked and I immediately felt like I’d make the right decision in staying true to my own personal style (I had chosen a pair of high-waisted, rust-coloured, peg-leg trousers and a cream crop-top with a terracotta number printed on the front.)
After a few minutes of waiting outside the room, our names were ticked off a guest list and we entered the reception room where there was champagne, orange juice, red, white and rose wine and water waiting in glasses for us and a table of snacky nibbles for us to pick at while we mingled with one another. This went on for about half an hour which was great as I was able to chat with a couple of other girls who were also interested in working in magazines. We compared our experience so far and swapped numbers before being led into a very modern lecture theatre style cinema room.
And it was then, as I sank into one of the poofy orange-leather chairs that I saw her: Liz Earle. Please see my blog entitled Marie Claire Inspire and Mentor Part 1 if you don’t know who she is, but you really should as she is an absolute legend!
The best things that Liz Earle taught me which I will remember for life are:
1) Crawl, walk, run – never rush into something, even though you may be excited make sure you plan for every eventuality then it stands a better chance of being as perfect as you want it to be!
2) If you enjoy what you do, you’ll never see your job as ‘work’.
3) Choose a business partner with a different skill-set to your own, because if you just double up then you are going to miss vital areas in which you could excel.
So the lecture was set up almost as an interview with Helen Russell the Digital Editor of Marie Claire posing questions and Liz Earle using these as I kind of prompt for her to tell her story and offer us some advice. Despite the Q and A-based technique, the interview style adopted by Helen was very relaxed which meant that Liz seemed to feel comfortable enough to crack a few jokes and the whole atmosphere was very warm with both women smiling from ear to ear throughout! I literally loved it! How often to you get to sit in on a chat between two of your biggest role models, whilst learning from their experiences? Well, hopefully more often if the success of the Inspire and Mentor campaign so far is anything to go by!
And then there was the goodie bag... Oooh this was amazing! So as we took our seats, we each had a Marie Claire canvas bag bursting open with the good quality products which I have been using ever since. What was inside? – I hear you ask. Well, naturally we got a copy of the June issue of Marie Claire complete with the free gift of a Body Shop Body Butter (I got mine in the mango flavour which is so sweet and delicious I actually want to lick my skin once it’s on!) I subscribe to Marie Claire, so usually this wouldn’t have been a great free gift to me, but unfortunately the night before attending the event, an absolute clod went and spilt a can of Pepsi all over my copy before I had chance to read it, so the free mag was more than welcome to me.
Next I realised that there was a big paper bag with the Liz Earle logo plastered across it... could it be that Liz Earle had given us some samples? No. Not sample. But FULL-SIZED PRODUCTS!!! Yes, that’s right. I received a Liz Earle Cleanse and Polish Hot Cloth Cleanser Starter Kit (which usually retails at £13.25), Liz Earle Instant Boost Skin Tonic (£11.75) and the Liz Earle Superskin Moisturiser (which can be bought for a whopping £33.20 but is totally worth it!) I couldn’t believe she had been so generous to have literally given us not only £58.20 worth of free products but also her time and experience for just a £35 entrance fee. Honestly, she is so generous and it will be totally worth it for her as since starting these products a couple of weeks ago, already I can’t imagine life without them. Look out for a review on the Liz Earle brand coming soon! Please take my word for it and purchase these items at www.uk.lizearle.com and I promise you won’t be sorry. I’m actually going to go one step further on that and say if you are in any doubt about this brand just look at these photos of Liz herself... she is in her late forties, works under the stress of running her own international business AND has a family and yet her skin is flawless. She literally has the best most glowingly beautiful, luminescent, bright skin I have ever seen. She is her brand’s greatest advert in my opinion.
Also, if you are interested, she was wearing Shimmer Brick by Bobbi Brown on her cheeks. I know this because I asked. I simply couldn’t resist enquiring about the warm rosiness on her apples which just screamed ‘Youth’ to me. Seriously, this woman is a goddess.
So at the end of the lecture I made a move – I had a train to catch home – but not before having a bit of a chinwag with the lovely Helen Russell. This woman has such an inspiring energy and made me feel like I was the first person to ever ask about working in magazines. I found she was really attentive, interested in me and eager to share her knowledge... I don’t wish to speak too soon, but we discussed the possibility of work experience with the Marie Claire Digital team and she is expecting to receive my CV any day now (once my exams are over I’m going to send it to Neil Robinson the Media Digital Director at IPC... he came and did a talk about getting into the publishing industry at my university in March and we have stayed in contact since. He suggested sending my CV to him first then he would forward it on for me and Helen seemed to support this suggestion.)
In all Getting into Beauty with Liz Earle was a fantastic experience and I commend her for being involved in a campaign as positive and influential as Marie Claire’s Inspire and Mentor. It’s not often that I, as a poor student, will turn around and say, ‘That was totally worth the money’, but you know what? If Liz Earle did another one of these events, I’d be prepared to pay double because it was just that good!
Keep your eyes peeled for Part 3 of this series which will be a similar report to this but on the topic of Getting into Business with Carole White Co-Founder of Premier Model Management.
If you do just one thing today, check out the campaign at www.marieclaire.co.uk.
gabriellasofia
As sceptical as I was about parting with £35 per night I was interested in attending, I’m proud to say that curiosity got the better of me and I booked two nights worth of Marie Claire Inspire and Mentor events. My student loan went in, and no sooner had £70 of it vanished then another £30 odd for my return train journeys for each day (booked with Virgin via www.nationalrail.co.uk and as a student I managed to book return tickets PLUS London Day Travel card which enabled me to use the Underground to my heart’s content all day for just over £15 per day... bargain!) I initially was considering staying in a hotel for the night, but with prices being so hefty and revision time coming up, I figured having the morning in my university library then making tracks to London at about 1ish was a much better idea, especially considering the amazing price I got it for.
So what exactly is the Inspire and Mentor Campaign? A scheme set up by Marie Claire in 2010 was originally designed in partnership with The Prince’s Trust charity in order to celebrate the success of women in the work place and encourage the sharing of ideas, networking and the importance of mentoring and helping one another along, in order to give women that bit more to be proud of. Sound great right? Well, it really is. Since its launch, the campaign has hosted numerous lectures and seminars with inspirational guest speakers, enlisted the help of 17 of the most influential women in Britain spanning industries from film and fashion to beauty and business and created very real partnerships between these high-profile females and women who just needed that extra push to make their ideas a reality! For more information about the campaign and the successes which the mentees have had since the gruelling interview process just a year ago, check out the June issue of Marie Claire retailing in all good magazine vendors for £3.60. For students who may find that a bit too painful a fee, consider subscribing for just £1 for the first three months then £2 after that at www.magazinesdirect.com (the company through which Marie Claire organise their subscriptions). Also, there is no obligation to continue subscribing after the £1 runs out!
Anyways, let’s get onto business! Which events did I book? Well, there were three... How to get into fashion with Jane Shepherdson (most famous for the epic revamp of Topshop a couple of years ago and turning around the fortunes of quality women’s brand Whistles), How to get into beauty with Liz Earle (the lady who started a world-renowned beauty brand using only natural ingredients from scratch whilst raising a family) and How to get into business with Carole White (love her or hate her, she founded Premier Model Management in 1981 with her brother and consequently starred in the 7-part Channel 4 documentary The Model Agency... she is also managed to get tangled up in the recent Naomi Campbell ‘Blood Diamonds’ lawsuit somehow...) Naturally, I wanted to get onto them all, but unfortunately the Jane Shepherdson event was fully booked. Never mind, I thought at the end of the day, I knew I wasn’t going for Jane, Liz or Carole, but to see as many Marie Claire employees as possible, so I let it slide.
What else was I expecting? Well, when I booked the events I heard that the Liz Earle one was to be held at the rather plush Charlotte Street Hotel in the Goodge Street area whilst the following night would take place at Marie Claire Headquarters at the beautiful glass Blue Fin Building in Southwark. So I was expecting to get lost, that’s what I’m trying to say! Naturally, I had to plan my outfit around my inability to follow direction, so I decided on the first day to keep things simple with my gold gladiator sandals bought from Faith a million years ago, rust coloured tapered Topshop trousers, cream Topshop crop-top with peach coloured detail and my oversized cream knit cardigan from, you guessed it, Topshop! The following day, I wore my black glads (bought at the same time and place as the gold ones!), but took a pair of my highest heels in my handbag for when I arrived, after all this was Marie Claire HQ, my future place of work, so I had to make a good impression! I paired the shoes with my black faux-leather jacket purchased in Papaya for a steal at $25 on my last trip to the USA, my black wayfarer sunnies from Urban Outfitters which were a present from my mom last year and my snakeskin-print jumpsuit from Topshop (another bargain... got it in the online Flash Sale for just £35 from £65!)
In my confirmation email I was informed that the events would start at 6.30pm and finish at 8pm on the 11th and 12th of May and that there would be nibbles and champagne available! I also read on the Marie Claire website that we would receive goodie bags containing about £60 worth of swag per night... I thought, ‘SCORE!’
Anyways, over the next few days I will write up what each of the events were like and let you in on the contents of my goodie bag, but I just wanted to do this blog to let you all know about the campaign and strongly recommend it. If you have any questions or have had any past experiences with the campaign, please just stick it down in the comments and I will respond as soon as possible J
Take care my little chick-ettes.
gabriellasofia
