Once in a while, you bump into a beauty product that is gimmicky and tries hard to put across a concept that is meant to multitask. You think awesome, I could do away with an extra step of work and eagerly buy into the concept and product. And then you find that it just tanks.

This is one of those times for me.

When I first saw the Garner PureActive Exfobrusher, my first thoughts were that it resembled L’Oreal Perfect Clean Detoxifying Foaming Gel. Instead of having a separate scrublet that you use the cleanser with, the soft bristles are mounted on the head of the bottle. The bristles are just as soft.

I followed the instructions on the bottle, but they didn’t really work for me. Even though I squeezed a signficant amount of cleanser out of the bottle, and turned the brusher’s head back to close, there just wasn’t enough cleanser left on the bristles that could give my skin sufficient cleansing. In the end, I simply left the brusher’s head to open, turned the bottle upside down, squeezed the crap out of it (damn bottle’s hard!), and only a tiny trickle of cleanser would flow out. To avoid the product from getting into my eyes, I had to lean sideways, one hand holding the bottle upside down, trying my darndest to scrub my face with the bottle.

In other words, it was a real nuisance to have to use this thing.

Tim used this for a week before I did, but he didn’t like it. Firstly he had to do the weird dance move as well, with the bottle held upside down just trying to get the product on his skin but not on his eyes. Secondly, he thought that the cleanser left his skin feeling dry and tight, which was why he stopped using it, and I continued to finish it (waste not, want not). On its own, without the bristles, I think it’s a decent gel cleanser for oily skin. It didn’t dry out my skin like it did Tim’s, and cleansed it sufficiently. But for that ExfoBrusher contraption, I’d say no.

For now, I’m trying to break the head apart so that I can decant the cleanser to a proper bottle, and then chuck the original one. At least this way I’ll be able to use the cleanser without having to do the boogie woogie with it.

Garnier’s PureActive ExfoBrusher retails at AU$11.99 for 150ml and is available at leading supermarkets and drugstores.

What I like about it: Decent cleanser. Just the cleanser.

What I did not like about it: The #$%@ brusher thingy on the head drives me bonkers!