2nd Update:
As you can see from my review, below, I love this little gadget and it worked great. It's been several months now and I still believe blue light therapy is the only thing that works for me...but I had to update this review as I just got the Verilux Clearwave Phototherapy System for Acne which is a new blue light wand. It, quite frankly, is even better. I have no ties to Verilux in any way but this new one is actually 50 times stronger than the ANSR. ANSR has 2 tiny blue bulbs in the head and the Verilux has around 50. You have to move the ANSR all over your face to make it work and with that tiny head it takes a half hour. Twice a day. With the strength and size of my new one, you just put it on one area of your face for three minutes and it's done. The Verilux also has disposable light heads so that when they begin to lose strength or die out (like the bulbs in a tanning bed) you just plop on a new one. This one does not so as these two bulbs get weaker or die you have to buy a WHOLE NEW ANSR beam. I was fine with all that until I got my new one. The bulbs are even bigger. My face just responds immediately to Verilux and I don't have to spend all day waving the wand over my face like I had to with ANSR,
Don't get me wrong...either one will work and this is the best treatment ever for acne, but the Verilux is way closer to what is used by my dermatologist and the results are equal to that as well. I had to give away my ANSR to a friend who has been wanting one....
Original review:
1st Update:
After using this for several weeks I wanted to give the whole breakdown on the process. The first week I noticed blemishes on the skin surface were small, or went away as well as tiny bumps under the surface of the skin. Towards the second week, things were brought to the surface so while I saw more breakouts surface and began to wonder if this was supposed to be happening, they were kept small with using the Answr and could be covered by good foundation. By the end of that week I noticed my pores were smaller because they were obviously totally cleared of excess oils or bacteria. By the third week for the first time ever I was able to stop using foundation entirely with crystal smooth skin, small pores, a flawless complexion. That said, the instructions say it could be 4 weeks. I did notice that when I used the red light as well more, that I did indeed have cellular regeneration meaning that my skin began creating a fresh later and the top layer sloughed off. Like a dermabrasion. This also helps minimize fine lines. I took the time the first three weeks to use as directed...twice a day. It was time consuming but this amount of treatment was temporary. I didn't always use the red light for the full amount of time but I always used the blue light (for bacteria removal). Now I simply spot treat as needed taking far less time and then do my full face maybe just once or twice a week.
IT IS A MIRACLE WORKER!! I was using prescription Retin-A prior with little result. This is the ONLY thing that worked and quite frankly blew my mind...I've never had flawless perfect glowing skin before and at may age it's a bizarre thing to start now!
Now back to the original review: First, as someone who once worked in cosmetic sales (selling the ingredients to the cosmetic scientists at the large cosmetic companies) I learned a lot. People who say they've tried every acne product on the market really only tried 2 if they are over the counter. There are only 2. If you turn the box over on any product you will always see "Active Ingredient: 10% Benzoyl Peroxide" or "Active Ingredient: 2% Salicylic Acid" By law, thats the top amount you can put in them and those are the two acne treatments. Some of the most expensive and most highly advertised products actually contain LESS...like Proactive. They apparently spent the money on ads and had a LOWER percent of the active ingredient. While there may be some all natural over the counter items that vary, basically your entire aisle of acne treatments is made up of only 2 products....and lots of marketing dollars to make you think they are different.
For recent hormonal breakouts, neither of these worked for me. Tanning did and I don't want to tan. Then I began reading about the blue light therapy and wondered if this is why tanning worked because even if I just did it for a few minutes without drying my skin out, it worked. But it ages you horribly and I certainly don't need that and it's expensive long term in lots of ways including the time to tan, the monthly fee, driving there, potential skin cancer risks, and probably needing botox later because of it!. Dermatologists are now using 15 minutes of solid blue light therapy applied over a solid area It seems crazy, but this goes down deep into the skin to kill bacteria and also remove excess oil in the glands which is why this works differently than other acne products like those that put heat on a pimple. Those are all topical, while this kills pimples you can't even see yet by killing the bacteria and clogged pours below the skin surface.
In testing, the blue and red light combo worked better than simply blue light therapy. So even if you don't feel like you need the red light for cell turnover, remember those test results for acne.
Why do you need cell turnover? That is actually what keeps us young. The reason we age is that as we get older our body stops the cell turnover process that it had in our youth, always removing the top layer of skin and generating new layers. Cell turnover is what retin-a and dermaplaning does...manually turning over your dead skin and generating new. This may seem like it's drying out your skin, when it's actually getting rid of old skin on the surface via cell turnover. (not like Retin-a which actually causes peeling) My skin actually didn't look dry at all.
Okay so the directions...I couldn't figure out how this thing worked by reading reviews here, on the Costco site (it's cheaper on Amazon than at Costco incidentally), on the beauty sites etc prior to buying (I research loads before I buy any product over $100 which is why I learned about blue and red therapy when I was considering just buying the blue light.)
(Also, I liked that most of the reviews on Amazon had the verified purchase stamp at the top of the review...I knew they'd bought the product rather than it being given to them to review, or having a connection to the company. I know even if you don't have the stamp you could have just bought it elsewhere but this is something new and I wanted to see what people who bought it on Amazon found just to be sure and it showed great results. This is a weird product so I wanted to know real everyday person results. But people talked about how they used it differently so I read the book that came with it.)
There is a small booklet that came with it that doesn't give you much info. Trash it. Read the more detailed one. Only then do you get the full scoop. So here is what you do, according to the booklet in my hand:
Wash and dry your face prior. Use it on a clean face.
Choose a 4x4 area of your face and begin moving the blue light back and forth slowly over it. It will then pulse and turn to a red light. Continue moving it on the same area to complete the process on this section. Push the button again and move on to the next 4x4 area. You do NOT go over your whole face the first 5 min of blue light. You are to concentrate on back and forth over small areas. For me I often did a bit more than 4x4. I did my chin area first, my right cheek, left cheek, then my forehead. So I divided it into 4 areas except for the 2nd week when more breakouts surfaced that were formerly hidden below the surface at which time I broke it up into 6 areas. THIS WORKED!!
You do not hold this above your skin, you touch your skin with the element as though you are shaving back and forth.
Although it says it can take several weeks to clear out all acne at the first use, I woke up the next morning with totally different skin after ONE use. I had just started breakouts in a few areas and, whereas they typically get worse the next day, these all had come to the surface or had gone away completely. By the end of the FIRST week I had totally clear skin which I typically don't have because I also workout heavily and the sweat winds up clogging my pores fairly often as well.
This was a miracle worker for me!
One tube of retin-A costs more than this for me and that takes about a month to complete cell turnover and it just never cleared things up for me. I actually felt a funny faint tingling under my skin after the first use of this...it felt like I had just tanned my face which is, I'm sure, just the bacteria dying and the cell regeneration perhaps as well.
I use it in the evening while I watch TV and in the morning while I drink my coffee. Nothing else works for me, truly, so I'd rather wake up 15 min earlier or drink my coffee more slowly then to go without doing this. There is always a cost to beauty and this is actually the cheapest dermatology appointment and treatment I've ever found...it does take time though.
You could use it without the red light and just do the blue light, as that has been shown to cure about 80% of acne but everything I read said the blue/red combo works better in studies. If I am rushed I do the blue then just a little red but not all of it.
Negatives: I didn't read this in the instructions but some reading I did on the results of blue light therapy said you should wear tanning goggles when using it because blue light is not good for the retinas and this will prevent any issues.
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ANSR: PREP 
ANSR: DAY 
ANSR: NIGHT 
ANSR: SERUM 
