The Wave is Neutrogena’s newest foaming face product, intended to simulate a very affordable facial/dermabrasion-like experience. The starter kit includes a hand-held vibrating wand with two trial packs of pre-soaped pads, and an AA battery. Much like I do with my toilet wand, the Wave’s head is designed to “grab” the pads. If you spend your days out on the farm, playing the jungle, or mucking out the horse stalls at the tracks, this might be a cheap way to reveal those gorgeous freckles of your’s.

Or keep using your fingers, working them in small circles around your face, and washing with your favorite cleanser.

When it comes to your toilet bowl though – make waves, stick with the wand!

Price: $14.69 at Amazon.

If it’s true that a forced smile on your face will eventually penetrate into your soul, then this new cosmetic device may work miracles for that person in your life who is always unhappy. And how about those people who are happy on the inside but have faces that don’t know how to smile properly and could benefit from a little smile training?

While this looks like a little dental torture device, the “Yumi,” is a mechanical gadget that you insert into your mouth to “train” your facial muscles to smile (a nice, upward smile, not a downturned smile which may confuse people). According to Tokyo Mango (and I’ll have to take their word for it, as I can’t read the product maker’s website), it comes in three colors and three strengths, normal for men, soft for women (why?), and rehabilitative for “seniors and children” (which would mean even softer?).

So what if the smile trainer makes you look like a monkey 4 times a day for 3 minutes? It’s non-invasive and cheap – just $50 at this website. Those of us in the U.S. may have to wait until it comes to Amazon.

Via Tokyo Mango.

If you think the ubiquitious spider head massager looks ridiculous, then you haven’t yet seen this face massager from Japanese company Akaishi. The device has four little arms, with a roller on the end of each arm. You move the rollers over your cheeks and chin to relax your tense facial muscles. The model pictured above seems to be using this and the other version made by the same company, which is used for the ridge of the nose and scalp.

Seems rather primitive compared to the electronic device marketed by Suzanne Somers, the FaceMaster, which stimulates your facial muscles with electricity to whip them into shape, though I suppose the rollers have a different purpose (relaxation as opposed to beauty enhancement).

The roller arms sell for 1,575 Yen (about $16).

Via The Nikkei Weekly (subscription).

In the fitness arena, companies never seem to tire of offering up products with the supposed ability to exercise our bodies without requiring us to actually do anything – and the market will continue to thrive as long as the gullible and lazy among us keep feeding it. Vibrating belts designed to trim our waists while we watch tv and exercise machines that promise to give us glutes of steel in just 4 minutes a day seem very compelling during bouts of insomnia at four in the morning.

Oh, but these muscle tone garments from Japanese sportwear maker Asics are different (until proven otherwise) because they assist you in toning your muscles during exercise. They’re made of elastic materials that pull your muscles together so that, for instance, with the upper body version, your shoulder blades are pulled toward the spine to correct posture. The lower body version pulls at the muscles in your butt and thighs. I suppose the idea is that the additional resistance resulting from this pulling makes exercising those areas of the body more efficient, like carrying weights in your hands while jogging.

The company makes eleven different versions of the muscle tone garment, some made of mesh for hot summers.

Via The Nikkei Weekly (subscription)

I might get kicked out of the girl club for admitting this, but I get more excited (probably too excited) about a new episode of Geekbrief than the latest Vogue and while I can find a hundred reasons to buy another MP3 player, dropping a hundred bucks on the latest face cream would make me want to cry.

However, I do like the occasional spree at Sephora (eyeshadows a specialty) so I had a little interest in news of a new beauty gadget for the eye area. Crystal Clear’s eye pen is a battery-operated serum delivery system (which sounds a bit rude, but isn’t). You gently rub the pen around the eye area to simultaneously stimulate circulation and ensure an even application of serum. (Again, sounds rude, but really isn’t.)

According to Crystal Clear, the pen “helps with dark circles, puffiness, lines and wrinkles and can also help lift and firm the skin around the eye.” It looks a little high-maintenance for my liking (I’d rather just wear sunglasses when I leave the house) and I could easily fund a second iPod with the £135 ($267) price tag but if your crow’s feet are your bete noir, I’d consider this before rushing straight to the botox doctor’s door.

If you’re taking part in an Indian celebration, have a kid who wants a tattoo but is waaaaaaay too young, or you’re just a mad crazy fan of henna, then Henna Penna is for you. As the name strongly implies, this product is henna… in a pen. Which is a godsend, as anyone who’s tried to do anything with henna (multiple hair dyes, here) knows how messy the darn thing can be.

Henna Penna pens are available in a range of colors including emerald and traditional brown and black, and can be used with stencils or freehand. At $25.75 per pen (from Nonstop Bazaar) they’re not dirt cheap, but they are all-natural and not tested on animals, so you your kids can play without fear. (Although I must advise some caution: designs fade, but can’t be erased, so not something to play with on the face, perhaps…)

This would have kept me quiet for hours when I was younger (hey, it still might today) and let’s face it, it’s a bit more fun than the last pen I wrote about.

Via Crafty Crafty, where they have made a rather nifty video about the whole process.

If Tom Cruise had this gizmo when Katie was preggars with Suri, she never would have made it out of the house. Remember how he bought the fetal ultrasound machine for use at home and took photos almost every hour? (According to National Enquirer, and you know how they fact-check all their stories.)

KickTrak does just what you think it does. The non-invasive handheld device counts your baby’s kicks to track his movement and assure you that he’s doing well. Ultimately, its real goal is to prevent the risk of stillbirth. Starting at 24 weeks, the kickTrak records and stores the time it takes for your baby to complete 10 movements, including kicks, rolls, jabs, and turns– once a day, at the same time, when your baby is usually most active.

Did you know the average person spends about 47 seconds brushing their teeth, less than half the 2 minutes dentists recommend? Or that you can brush too hard, which can contribute to early gum recession? Scary stuff.

Now, this may not seem like a perfect gift for Mother’s Day but if you consider that the “mouth is the gateway to health” and that moms don’t spend money on themselves, it makes sense.

The new Oral-B features Smart Technology which enables the brushhead, handle and visual display to work together to give you visual cues that help you brush better. The brushhead and handle, which are embedded with microchips, communicate with the wireless display to signal when you are brushing too hard, when to move to the next quadrant of the mouth, when you have brushed for two minutes, and when it is time to replace the brushhead.

At first, I was discouraged by all the pieces (it comes with a unit to attach to a wall) and the instructions, but it’s actually an easy one-step process, and since the display unit is wireless, you can put that anywhere.

Oral-B Triumph with SmartGuide is available for $149 at Amazon.

Just throw in some Godiva chocolate and you’re golden.

One of the most compelling moments of the movie Memento, for me, was when the lead character, who is suffering from complete loss of short-term memory, revealed a series of tattoos on his body to remind him of vital facts that he needed to know in order to survive. What else is as enduring or as accessible as a tattoo? My sister is such a post-it addict, that she not only uses a Stickies program, but she also keeps the actual post-its attached to her monitor. And then there are more post-its along her path out to the front door, and then a great big one on the front door to remind her of why she’s leaving. How much easier would her life be if she could just tattoo those reminders on her body instead?

Now she sort-of can, with ToDo-tattoos, temporary tattoos with lines for making neat to-do lists right on your hand. They come with a skin safe marker so you can write on the tattoos without fear of death by ink poisoning. This is one step towards my dream of having an e-ink display embedded in my palm (and another one in my husband’s forehead because I always have to remind him that he’s supposed to remind me to do something).

ToDo tattoos are $3.50 for a pack of 12.

As much fun as constant sneezing and itchy eyes can be, most of us who suffer from hay fever dream of spending an entire summer symptom-free. British company Health Innovations claims they can now make that dream a reality, thanks to a new gadget called Medinose.

Medinose works by using to photo therapy to inhibit the release of histamine. Insert the prongs of the device into your nose for 4-5 minutes, two or three times a day, and you could apparently see a reduction or even elimination of your symptoms. This has to be worth a try: it’s drug-free, simple, and at £79.95 ($158) is a lot less expensive than weekly prescriptions…

Via Shiny Shiny.