REVIEW: The Current Body Series 2 red light mask (+ other notes from the spendies)

This week I pissed away an entire freelance check on the Current Body Series 2 red light therapy mask and a pink Chanel shoulder bag with gold hardware.

This feels like a tip-of-the-iceberg admission, me testing the waters before I tell you I’m about to declare bankruptcy after gambling on Puerto Rican cockfights and clearing out SSENSE sales. But the gene that gave my mob ancestors their naughty joie de vivre skips a couple generations. I am merely a suburban mom who got a little bored, spent a little money. Tale as old as time.

I was at dinner with a mom friend recently who said I was bound to get the “spendies” soon. (First time I’d ever heard that term—so good.) I’d been gloating about not shopping so I deserved to be humbled by someone who’s been pregnant and knows how it goes. If “bitches be shopping,” pregnant bitches be fully compromising the financial health of their households to ease the discomfort.

Last pregnancy’s vice was body care. Some of you may recall. I felt so disembodied by the limitations of carrying a child that touching myself in simple, routine ways became profoundly restorative. Every day was a minefield of unbearable symptoms; it was nice to have this one thing that I knew for certain I would do each night, that it would make me feel better. Now it’s just part of my life, you know, exfoliating, moisturizing, being intentional in that way. I have enough products to last a year.

This pregnancy, though, there’s no real void to fill. I have what I need. I know what to expect. But the bad feelings come on and holy fuck are they BAD and I’m not one to resist my winking, sweet-talking Chase card.

Let’s start with the red light mask. You’d think a girl like me would have an algorithm engineered around such frivolous devices. Au contraire, diva! My exposure was quite limited, which only bolstered the appeal; i.e., if I’d seen them all over, I would have gotten my usual contrarian ick. Instead, red light masks appeared just enough for that pin prick of curiosity. My Bryan Johnson senses started tingling like ok, so I… need this???

Now, I’d never feign powerlessness before futuristic temptations with all their gimmicks and creepy false promises; I knew full well that I was entering nefarious territory, adopting the belief that some Thing could marginally improve how I feel about my looks during a vulnerable time. All I had to do from there was consult the girls.

My Instagram followers are my beauty product foot soldiers. I ask a question and they’ve got answers with research citations. “Ok I’m caving. What red light mask do you bitches use?”1 I posted one evening from the trenches of nausea and self-loathing. The answers were a clean split between the Omnilux and the HigherDOSE. I almost pulled the trigger on the Omnilux without researching because the girls who recommended it were all gorgeous. Same with the HigherDOSE really but maybe I liked the name Omnilux better.

Realizing that’d be a poor decision, I got to researching. Some Reddit users declare red light masks “useless toys.” Obviously anyone on a mission to make a big stupid purchase will disregard the naysayers. But efficacy aside, I knew they were onto something, at least with respect to my personal desires.

Me wanting a red light mask was me wanting a toy. Something to do. Or not do—an instrument of 10-minute stillness under the guise of productivity. Because doesn’t aesthetic maintenance make you feel like you’re getting stuff done? It gives me that to-do list hit of dopamine, anyway. You have to wear the mask every day for like, eight weeks to see results, so there’s even this sense that you’re working toward something. Whether that sense is illusory is beside the point. The element of play is always present.

The Current Body Series 2 arrived Wednesday morning. I was too busy to even open the box until Bianca went down Friday evening and when I did, I was shook. This did not feel, to me, like a $450 tool. This was a piece of flaccid rubber boxed up like an iPad. Lipstick on a pig! But then again, what did I expect? What basis for comparison did I have?

The instruction manual came with its own misses, most critically, zero mention of how to configure the straps and put the thing on your face. No biggie! Only the singular function of a mask! This was especially frustrating for me as someone whose brain shuts down when confronted with such tasks; it’s a miracle I can even tie my shoes. Thankfully Current Body has a tutorial on YouTube with a comment section of similarly disgruntled customers. For once, I am not the idiot here (at least not the only one).

Even once you’ve got the straps where they need to go, adjusting them to fit the mask to your head is a pain in the ass. You may lose some hair in a velcro battle. I more or less conceded to “good enough,” laid back in bed, and pressed ON.

I spent much of my youth collecting quarters from under couch cushions to fry myself in a dirty, coin-operated tanning bed connected to a laundromat, next to a greasy diner by the train tracks. I remember feeling so scared whenever I’d accidentally open my eyes, like I’d go blind on the spot. Figured I already had melanoma and God was scheming on his next strike.

The Current Body Series 2 makes the tanning bed look like the night sky. This shit is BRIGHT. There’s no instruction to close your eyes, but good luck opening them! You will be met with the fury of 1000 suns. Naturally, it comes with “optional” rubber eye inserts to, and I quote, “make reading, scrolling, or watching tv with your device on even easier,” because God forbid you tap out for 10 minutes. It does not, however, show you how to put them in. Shocker.

I laid there for 10 minutes with my eyes closed and I started seeing little faces in the red light, flashing behind my eyelids. The first face was a crude scribble with an evil smile, a hieroglyphic of sorts. The second was an outline of a woman’s face with pouty lips and almond eyes, something Matisse-inspired that you’d find at Marshall’s and hang in the bathroom of a yoga studio. I decided I could be concerned, or I could make friends with the figures of the mask. Everyone wants to be beautiful, after all. Even the imaginary.

The mask shut off automatically when it hit the 10-minute mark. I opened my eyes and the entire room looked green.

You’d think that with all these complaints, I’d return the Current Body Series 2. Not so fast. I am trusting the process harder than Embiid in an emergency appendectomy right before the playoffs. I will report back on my progress in seven weeks. If this does anything to calm my fussy pregnancy skin, I’ll call myself a believer.

Next up is the Chanel bag. Real bad girl hours afoot…