Picture taken from MakeON official site

What is it? A LED device by MakeON, a brand under AmorePacific, featuring blue, yellow and red light settings to target various skin issues. Christinahello gave it such a glowing review that I knew I had to get my hands on it. She did a great job covering the packaging, functions, methods of use etc, so I’ll suggest taking a look at her post for more information. What this post covers is my experience with the product, and my answer to the question of “does this work?”

When I first heard of LED devices, I had my doubts of whether they would work – half of me figured that its a gimmick, while the other half remained curious and wanted to try it out myself before reaching a verdict. Moreover, I knew that dermatology clinics offered LED therapy so I figured that LED therapy as a treatment is legit, and this would be the miniature home version of it (albeit at a less intense power).

Increasingly, more and more LED devices started entering the market last year and my curiosity got better of me. So after getting hold of this for around 9 months, here are my thoughts on MakeON Skin Light Therapy.

Experience with product: Like what Christinahello mentioned, this indeed stings like mad over pimples and open wounds. As someone who constantly has acne and extracted pimples, the pain is too much to bear when using it over my usual skincare. I can bear the pain of laser treatments and injections at my dermatologist but this just stings so much that I can’t bring myself to use it. Instead, I use this over a sheet mask, which greatly diminishes any stinging sensation and makes the device much more pleasant to use.

I tried suggesting to my boyfriend that maybe the stinging sensation shows that the device works (I know…I’m trying so hard to convince myself that I didn’t just blow over a hundred dollar on a gimmick), but he suspects that the stinging sensation are simply mini electrical shocks.

Effectiveness/Performance: So here comes the most important part that most people would be interested in…I am sad to say that this does not work for me. I hoped so hard to see the results that Christinahello had – the diminished pimples, irritations and redness, but nope, zero effect. I cannot see any results or difference whatsoever after using this for months. Well, granted that I use it on a frequency of once a week since it stings so badly, I knew that my results wouldn’t be as apparent, but I still hoped to see a slight effect no matter how small it may be. Say even a slight radiance or glow?

So do I still use this then? I do use it whenever I do a face mask, but otherwise I wouldn’t reach for it (I mean I paid for it already, so I might as well not waste it and hope one day that it would magically work)

Price: 150,000 won. A pretty hefty price tag, but MakeON Skin Light Therapy is one of the cheaper LED devices in the market.

Where to buy: This is honestly pretty hard to get hold off, but I found it on Qoo10 for people in Singapore/those able to ship from there. Initially, I asked a friend who was touring Korea to get this for me, but she was unable to find it.

Now that I am in Korea myself, I’ll say that most regular-sized drugstores (eg. Olive Young, LOHB, Lalavla) do not carry this. BUT for those coming to Busan, I found just one store in selling it in Nampo-dong (one of the main shopping districts in Busan). There are multiple drugstores littered around Nampo-dong, but the one that I saw carrying MakeON products is the massive Olive Young in BIFF Square.

Repurchase: I guess you can tell by now that I wouldn’t repurchase unless I’m crazy or have too much money to spend.

Overall rating: 1/5. Frankly, this was a waste of money for me. I know that this worked for many, and I wanted it to be part of that group too. I tried psycho-ing myself for the longest time that it worked, but I honestly just can’t see any effect no matter how hard I tried to give chance. Ultimately, I’ll say that if you are feeling rich, there’s still no harm buying this to try. Who knows if you will be part of the lucky group that it worked for. Else, this sum of money is better off spent on other products.

*Edit: I’ve received suggestions to use the device without the sheet mask to boost its effectiveness, so I’ll give the device another whirl and update if I see any improvements over time 🙂 *

*As of 12 Dec 2018: This device really stings like mad when I use it without a sheet mask, so I’m giving up on using this by itself*