Celebs Are Obsessed with This $500 Beauty Tool (And Now I Am, Too!)

Like most cool things I try these days, I discovered my latest obsession — the Ziip Beauty Nano Current Device — on Instagram. There I was, lying in bed, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes while simultaneously watching influencer Kaitlynn Carter (a.k.a. Brody Jenner’s fiancé) give a step-by-step Ziip tutorial on her Insta story. I was running late and should have been showered and downstairs making my kids breakfast, but nope, instead I was glued to Carter’s 12-minute demonstration of how this beauty gadget was delivering electrical currents to her face, making her skin so crazy dewy that I wanted to scream with envy.

Backstory: I’m an exhausted mom of four kids, one of whom is a newborn, and my current skin status can best be described as haggard. People I bump into actually say, “You look tired.” And they’re right! I am so f--king tired. But just because I’m hopelessly sleep-deprived doesn’t mean I want to look tired AF, ya know?

Then I saw Kim Kardashian share her Ziip routine (she did this twice, back in 2016 and again this week, and the brand has, btw, confirmed she is not a paid ambassador), Mandy Moore told Allure the device lifted and tightened her skin, and legendary makeup artist Pat McGrath described it to InStyle as a “pilates class for your face.”

(Kim IG) Credit: Kim Kardashian/Instagram

So, clearly, I had to try this magic beauty gadget for myself. Because, duh, peer pressure. But I was skeptical — at $500 the Ziip is not cheap. Aaaand it involves a bit of work on the user’s part. Pre-set with the most popular 12-minute “Energize” treatment, the device requires you to slide it across your neck and face two or three times per area (i.e. throat, chin, cheek bones, laugh lines, etc.) and well, it’s a little confusing. You also need to douse your skin in the brand’s Golden Conductive Gel Treatment — a serum that actually pulls the electrical waveforms into your skin — so much so that the device won’t work if you don’t have enough on your skin!

Thankfully, in addition to a user manual that details each step, the Ziip iPhone/iPad app offers a video where founder Melanie Simon walks you through each step, explaining exactly how you should be placing the tool on your skin and the amount of pressure you should be using. These videos are key to the whole Ziip experience, because without them you’d be lost — Melanie’s soothing directions were like a life raft for me in a sea of beauty doubt whenever I was giving myself a treatment.

Speaking of which, there are seven different treatments & tutorial videos you can access via the app — just synch your phone to your device and you can program in the four-minute “Instant Gratification” for days when you just don’t have 12 minutes. Zits got you like whoa? Pick the “Total Clearing” cocktail that targets on-set acne. Left with melasma post-pregnancy? The “Pigment Treatment” combats just that.

Now to the question you’re all asking: Does it work? Well, I might not look younger per se, but I can say that my skin legit glows post-Ziip-ing, especially the day after an Energize treatment. Why? Because those electrical wavelengths the device is delivering are actually going beneath the skin and boosting collagen and elastin (hello, younger-looking skin) and diminishing bacteria (buh-bye, acne). And that gel serum that comes with the device? Well, it’s pretty powerful, packed with bio placenta and growth hormones that is intended to leave skin looking brighter and feeling a whole lot smoother.

For me, that’s totally been the case. I’ve been using the device three days a week for the past month, switching between the “electrical cocktails” the app offers, and have found that overall my skin is softer and dewier (is that even a word?) than ever before. Okay, wait, my skin was probably softer and dewier when I was 22 … but that was a long time ago!

Since becoming a Ziip devotee my skin has a luminous quality that I’m loving — kind of like how you feel right after you get a facial. I have also found that pre-zits (those areas that are super sensitive and red and you know will become a zit any day now) get blasted by the electrical currents in the Total Clearing treatment and are gonezo by the next day. I was definitely nervous that the electrical currents would be intense or painful but I promise they’re not at all. After using it a few times, I actually became slightly addicted to the tingling sensations the metal discs give off, and the device gets nice and warm, too, which I loved.

Is this gadget the fountain of youth? Not exactly, but its results are akin to those $150 facials you’re splurging on every other month, so you might as well just hunker down and invest in the Ziip instead. Waking up with skin as soft as my new baby’s butt has made me a believer. Even if I’m still tired AF.