Maybe she’s born with it. Maybe she’s electrocuting her face every night.
Launched March 2020, the $299 Foreo Bear is an electrical facial device that runs a low voltage microcurrent(opens in a new tab) through your skin to stimulate your muscles, circulation, and collagen production in pursuit of a more youthful visage. People have sworn by microcurrent facials since the '70s, though treatments offered in salons(opens in a new tab) are significantly more powerful than those offered by the growing number of at-home devices. Like NuFace's popular microcurrent facial gadgets(opens in a new tab), Foreo recommends the Bear for people who have anti-aging concerns, or want to sculpt and tighten their face, improve wrinkles, and get rid of fine lines — all common skincare concerns.
Fortunately, I don't have many wrinkles. However, aside from the fact that it can allegedly be used for prevention, I hoped Foreo's Bear might address the persistent roundness to my facial structure, an affliction that prompts others to ask what I'm doing after graduation. Also, a microcurrent facial just sounded fun to try.
"Now Amanda," you're probably thinking. "Maybe the reason the iPhone store security guard knelt down to talk to you isn’t because of the cherublike plumpness of your cheeks. Maybe it’s because your vibe is that of a bookish 11-year-old — one from the '90s who has never played Fortnite. Also, misogyny."
This may be true. However, there isn’t much I can do to age my aura or immediately dismantle the patriarchy right now, so I’m going to run an electric current through my face instead.
We're going on a Bear hunt — what is the Foreo Bear and how does it work?
Using the Foreo Bear is fairly straightforward. Simply slather your face with conductive gel, power up your device, then run it over your skin with both metal balls touching you. Foreo recommends using the Bear for three minutes every day and keeping it up for two months, after which you can reduce use to once every two days.
Maybe she’s born with it. Maybe she’s electrocuting her face every night.
You don't have to use Foreo's Serum Serum Serum conductive gel(opens in a new tab) — any oil-free, hydrating, conductive gel will also work. Some people even use ultrasound gel, which I might switch to since my $59 bottle of serum only lasted for two months of daily treatment. You do need a conductive medium for the Bear to work though, and a significant amount of it. Not using enough gel results in small, painful zaps, which I learned the hard way.
Foreo also advises people with epilepsy to check with their doctor before using the Bear, but the manual straight up says not to use it at all. But I’ll be real with you. Practically every single video game tells me to check with my doctor before shooting zombies in the face, and I never do. Even before I was in remission, it's just way too impractical. This is not an endorsement or suggestion that you play similarly fast and loose with your nervous system. This is just a peek at my questionable life choices for some helpful context regarding the kind of person I am.
Total knockout
The Bear's silicone body has three buttons: one to increase the microcurrent's intensity, another to decrease it, and a third to turn the device on and off. I primarily used the power button to turn the Bear off since I followed Foreo's Total Facial Knockout treatment plan, an app-controlled routine which aims to give users "an overall toned and sculpted complexion."
Not that I had much choice in routines. There's only one Bear treatment plan in the app, and while Foreo assured me it will be adding more, it couldn't tell me what would differentiate them nor when they might arrive. Which is just as well, since the one routine actually available still needs some work.
The Total Facial Knockout treatment guide is completely visual, illustrated with a video of a serene woman silently demonstrating when and where to apply the Bear. This lack of audio is slightly annoying if you want to look at a mirror rather than a beatific white lady during your routine. However, a more immediate issue is that the Total Facial Knockout routine doesn't instruct you to put gel on your neck despite having you apply the Bear there. Foreo did say it will look into fixing this mistake when Mashable brought it to their attention, but for now it's much more comprehensive and efficient to ignore the app's gel application instructions and do it yourself.
The routine spent noticeably longer on the left side of the face than the right, and pauses in the Bear's current didn't always match with the guide. This left it up to me to manually ensure the equal distribution of microcurrents, which I largely neglected to do because I am a beauty gremlin.
There's also no way to pause the routine once you get started, or to skip forward or back. You can only stop the routine completely, in which case you have to start the whole procedure again from the beginning. And doing so won't work unless you completely close and reopen the app first.
Yeah, but does it work?
I will say that testing a beauty device that's designed to be used daily is good motivation to actually look after yourself while working from home. However, considering my skin is still relatively elastic and collagen-packed, I am perhaps not the best candidate for the Foreo Bear.
It took me a few days to get used to the Bear's microcurrent. My head felt a tiny bit tight after using it for the first time, like the beginnings of a headache, and I was mildly nauseous after each treatment for the first couple of weeks. However these feelings were slight enough that they could easily be dismissed as psychosomatic, or the result of a stressful day. Though the majority of the literature I'd read indicated that microcurrent facials were absolutely fine, my overactive anxiety brain wouldn't let go of the idea that I was frying my face.
Fortunately by the third week the Bear was built into my daily routine, and I wasn't noticing any adverse effects. While I'd started the microcurrent's intensity at the Bear's lowest setting, it didn't feel as though it was doing much so I turned it up one step on the second day. I continued gradually increasing the current, upping it on the 11th and 32nd days, before finally settling at the highest setting a few days later.
Some people claim to see results after just one session with the Bear, but I didn't see anything until almost a month in. I finally noticed a subtle difference on day 28 of my Foreo experiment, my face seeming just a tiny bit more structured, with slimmer and less rounded cheeks. The line that appears when I raise my eyebrows might also have been a tiny bit shallower. Yet they were such slight changes that they could have simply been the result of eating less salt that day.
Unfortunately, it's difficult to tell how much of the minuscule change I thought I saw was real, and how much was in my head. When I compare photos taken before and after my two months with the Bear, I can't see any difference at all. Absolutely nobody in my life noticed anything different about my appearance either. Though to be fair, they don't regularly scrutinize my face (as far as I'm aware).
Minor irritations
The routine isn't the only area in which the Foreo app needs improvement. It's currently full of strange and inexplicable quirks, ranging from mildly irritating to actively misleading.
When first setting up your account, the app asks several questions such as your skin type (combination), whether you tan or burn (burn rarely), how many glasses of water you drink per day (maybe 7, if I’m being generous), and how often you exercise (okay Foreo, I don’t need your judgement). Why they want this information I couldn’t tell you — it doesn’t seem to inform anything in the app. I couldn’t even find where it was stored so I could change it, meaning my Bear will forever perceive me as a dehydrated potato.
There is also no specific information regarding the Bear in the app's FAQ section, with questions more focused on the Luna brush and Foreo devices in general. And every single answer was the same regardless of the question, telling me to “Wash the brush surfaces with soap and water…” Okay, but I wanted to know if I needed to charge my Bear before starting it up. (I didn't, but it was fine.)
It just feels a bit unpolished, which you don't want from a high-tech beauty device running electricity through your face.
Add to cart?
While the Foreo Bear(opens in a new tab) isn't targeted at any particular age range, an older person with more wrinkles or sagging will likely get more benefit from it than me. I had liked the idea of a better defined jaw and less teen-like face, but the impact of the Bear's microcurrent was sadly too minuscule for anyone but myself to notice, and even I barely did.
The Foreo Bear is a fun device that makes me feel like a fancy lady pampering herself, and I don't think I'm completely done with it yet. But for $299, plus the $59 conductive serum, I wish I'd gotten more obvious results.
