The wacky world of beauty gadgets— How-To-What-Is

There are a lot of beauty gadgets and items that you can get on online shopping platforms. Some of them look exciting, and some of them look… vaguely disturbing. But this is where Ray and I come in—for an episode of How-To-What-Is, we wanted to get some of the weirdest beauty items that we could find. Are any of these items worth it, or did we just waste our money?

Nose Clip

Price: RM3.90 (Shopee)

What is it supposed to do: Supposed to shape your nose for a “high nose” shape with “no harm to body”.

Verdict: While we both didn’t try it out for “30 minutes a day” like the Shopee page recommended, the “nose clip” is essentially just a basic peg—with silicone plugs that go in your nostrils. We could easily recreate the clip by using a clothes peg for laundry. We doubt that a nose clip can shift the shape of our noses in the long run. If you’re serious about changing your nose shape, this clip probably wouldn’t help.

Double Eyelid Trainer

Price: RM3.50 (Shopee)

What is it supposed to do: This tool will help you have the double eyelid effect, with no surgery required.

Verdict: Sure, I already have double eyelids. And somehow, Ray has one double eyelid for one of her eyes. But that didn’t stop us from trying out these weird-looking double eyelid trainers—as we just wanted to see how they worked. I felt uncomfortable almost immediately after feeling the little plastic hoops resting on my eyelids. They were way too ticklish for me to keep them on for more than five minutes. Needless to say, they didn’t give any of us triple eyelids or anything like that. If you want to give yourself double eyelids, we heard that the eyelid tapes works better.

Smart Hula Hoop

Price: RM35.40 (The one we bought is now unlisted, but here’s another listing that’s priced from RM54.72 on Shopee)

What is it supposed to do: Hula hoops are meant to slim your waist, but if you don’t know how to do it, it will fall down right away. This item promises to give you the hula hoop effect, without falling down.

Verdict: Surprisingly, this one didn’t suck as much as the other products we’ve purchased. We thought it was going to be silly and we didn’t think it would work. We were still right about how silly it is, but it actually worked. It would give you a great work out, without needing to learn how to hula hoop (hula hooping is difficult!), and you were given these extra pieces of extenders to fit most bodies (take note: it won’t fit EVERYONE depending on the body type). It was hard to figure out how to build the when it first came in the box, but once we figured it out, it was relatively easy. This smart hula hoop can also be cheaper than a regular hula hoop online, so it might be fun to get—if you’re looking for something like it.

Cucumber Sharpener

Price: RM4.36 (Shopee)

What is it supposed to do: To make thin cucumber slices for a face mask.

Verdict: Ray absolutely loved it, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out the appeal of it beyond the fact that it’s an oversized pencil sharpener. It was able to sharpen a large japanese cucumber, and we were able to use its “shavings” as a mask. But we could have easily used a mandolin, or sharpen our knife skills to get the same effect.

Rubber Face Slimmer

Price: RM4.31 (Shopee)

What is it supposed to do: To give sagging facial skin and muscles “the much needed lift”.

Verdict: Let’s not beat around the bush here. The “face slimmer” looks really nasty. But I wanted to try it purely because I thought it was funny. Putting it on was a bit of a challenge if you’re not familiar with mouth guards or anything like that. It also made us drool a lot. For it to “work” the Shopee page advised us to “say AEIOU” a few times while wearing it in our mouths. Did it “lift sagging skin”? Absolutely not. But it might be because we’ve only tried it once. If you’re keen to try it for several days, weeks, or months for any results, go right ahead. But we don’t think it will do anything dramatic—besides looking dramatically stupid while wearing it.

DIY Mask Machine

Price: RM59.90 (Shopee)

What is it supposed to do: Sometimes you can’t get the face mask you want, so why not DIY it?

Verdict: We had high hopes for this product. It was going to be a showstopping ending for our video (which you can watch at the top of the page), but it left us so dissapointed! We’ve seen these DIY mask machines (the bigger, more expensive ones) work wonders, and we wanted to try a cheaper one out to make face masks out of strange things like root beer and yoghurt. Alas, the “collagen” pill that was meant to make the liquid into masks did not dissolve at all in the “machine”. The “machine” itself was also just a tiny blender with a four minute timer. We ended up not having masks to try, and we wasted RM60.

If you’ve noticed, more and half of the items we’ve tried were dissapointing or didn’t work like we hoped. We also genuinely did not know it was going to turn out this way—as there was a lack of content covering anything like the items. Sometimes, we can get deceived through false promises in cheap items online, and there are a lot of beauty items online with those false promises.

If you’re really looking to change how you look, looking for a cheap shortcut might just waste your money. I’m also pretty sure you’re great just the way you are.