The lovely folks at Skincarerx (a sponsor of mine!) were kind enough to send me their Personal Microderm Kit (PMD). It's just like it sounds-- a microdermabrasion at home. For my honest opinion, they sent me one free of charge. So without further ado, here's my two cents.
1. I have used this nifty little product a few times now. I would have used it more, but as some might recall I have been seeing a dermatologist to get facial peels and laser treatments (more on that another time). Since that takes a week or so to heal, I can't use this until I'm totally back to normal. But, the times I have used it have been a good experience.
2. Before using, I watched a little video on how to operate the device. It comes with a small hand-held thinga-ma-jig (I use scientific terminology) and several coarse heads that do the dirty work of micro-derming. The heads vary in intensity of coarseness (I started with green, which is moderate, and will work up to blue, which is heavy-coarse). The head sizes are different, too-- small for face and large for larger areas, like hands or arms. I only used it for my face, as that's my area of most concern. Once I got a feel for how to do it, I jumped right in!
3. Using it is pretty simple. The trick is to get the head as tightly suctioned to your skin as possible so that the dermabrasion head can do it's job. That part is a little tough only because you have to pull your skin tightly with your hands to get it to work. Also, it's a little difficult getting certain parts of your face (like the bridge of your nose, for me at least).In terms of discomfort level, it's just slightly irritating. And once you get used to it, it's no big deal at all. Sort of just like someone is scratching your face slightly, which is completely bearable and no biggie.
4. Results: I wish I could show pictures but unfortunately with my peels and laser treatments, there's no way to show what just this PMD has done. But I can tell you the results were good... not great, but good. In terms of appearance, I didn't notice much difference. Maybe my face was slightly more radiant. In terms of skin texture, a big difference was noted. It really did feel like all the gross, dead skin was sloughed away... which is exactly what it's supposed to do! So, I would recommend using it for that purpose more so than for the appearance of your skin to drastically improve. Then again, others have had better results in appearance, so it probably depends.
Also, I really think that with regular use, appearance of the skin will get better. It's one of those things that I think will help maintain the youth of the skin rather than give immediate, amazing results. So because of that, I'm totally going to keep using it.
**OVERALL RATING OF PMD**: With everything considered, I rate this product a B+: relatively easy to use, not painful, decent results.... hoped improvement with long-term results.
That's all! Hope it's helpful to some of you considering purchasing a personal at home microderm kit. If you are, I would say this is a great one to buy.
