Consumerism Reports: The $399 Face Vibrator That's Fun for the Whole Family

Welcome to Consumerism Reports, a recurring series about all my devices. I’d like to clarify that it is NOT a tech column — it’s about spending money to speed up self-transformation, and then buying more stuff when that doesn’t work. And so I have acquired an endless array of devices: from products that promise to make my face look more triangular and the skin around my eyes less purple to ones that shrink specific parts of my salt-logged body. Do any of them work?

Buhhhhhh!!! Whoahhh!! Oooooh, mamma!!! That’s the stuff! Have mercy! Oi-oi-oi-oi-oiiiiI!!

That’s me, attempting to write a Consumerism Report when I’d rather just be sitting here in soft lighting, pupils dilated, smoosh-smooshing and electrocuting my face to a pulp with the new, state-of-the-art TheraFace PRO by Therabody all-in-one facial device. Even though it sounds violent and mutilating, I swear it’s quite relaxing if you’re the sort of person who believes in the credo “if it doesn’t hurt, it’s not working.” And I think the TheraFace PRO does work, even if my face isn’t more triangular because of it.

This is a vibrator for the face that comes with magnetic attachments intended for different uses: three different massagers, a silicone face-washing brush, red and blue light rings, and an electro-current facial toning system comparable with NuFace, a psychotically expensive muscle-stimulating, face-shaping wand that I’ve evangelized so much that I’m even in a group chat with some Gawker staffers called “🌺🌺🌺 nu face girls 🌺🌺​​🌺” where we check in a few times a week to see if our cheekbones are cheekbonier yet.

Everything was great until I dropped my NuFace in the toilet. After trying for a month to get it replaced without any luck at all, I turned my sights on the TheraFace. The TheraFace is also prohibitively pricey at $399, but it does seven or eight more things than the NuFace does, and at the same price.

Of course, I tried really hard to get this new one for free for the purposes of this product review, and was once again unsuccessful. None of my emails begging for the product worked. Before forking over my debit card’s CVC number, I analyzed my two options one last time: is it more advantageous to be Nu or to be Thera when it comes to Face? It’s a question I still can’t answer, even if I did graduate from cognitive behavioral therapy only to return to a professional six months later when I discovered my life wasn’t yet fixed. I ultimately decided to go with the TheraFace because of its many functions. (One can also buy TheraFace hot and cold ring attachments for facial depuffing, but I didn’t do that.)

I love this thing, though of course I cannot speak to its efficacy over the NuFace’s equally impressive electrocution methodology. It feels remarkable on a tight jaw when suffering from a spell of TMJ. When a tension headache hits, my advice is to attack the base of the skull. I also like to really get into lymphatic drainage with this, a perhaps pseudoscientific face-depuffing practice I learned about on YouTube in 2016.

Over Memorial Day, I brought along this military-grade weapon on a family trip. For years, my family has been known to gather around the dinner table taking turns with an off-brand Theragun my dad’s friend once bought him years ago as a thank you present for taking his children water skiing, so I thought they’d really like this.

The whole family was moaning and cawing and making all the sort of exclamations I did at the top of this review. It was gross. We loved it.

Previously: The $65 Birkenstock Cork Juice for the Face