I bought every skincare device going. Here's the only one I still use in April.
A sceptic's diary. 90 days, one Swedish device, and the moment I stopped rolling my eyes at before-and-afters.
I should preface this by saying I am the wrong person to write this article.
I do not believe in miracle devices. I have called LED masks "expensive torches." I once described microcurrent to my sister as "basically a TENS machine for your vanity." When a friend told me red light therapy had changed her skin, I told her it was probably the new moisturiser she'd started the same week.
I am, historically, not the target market.
I am also 52, perimenopausal, the owner of four abandoned skincare devices, and a woman who has watched her face age faster in the last three years than in the previous fifteen. Which is to say: I am exactly the target market. I just didn't want to be.
I didn't write that. A woman on Mumsnet did. But I could have.
What I'd already tried.
In approximate order of purchase and abandonment:
A jade roller (£45, used for two weeks, now lives with the garlic press). A red-light LED mask (£349, used for six weeks, saw nothing, cupboard). A microcurrent wand I bought after a Vogue piece (£289, the gel it needed was £38 per tube, I gave up in March). A derma roller my aesthetician recommended (£28, drew blood once, bin).
Total: approximately £711. Total impact on the structural layer of my skin: zero. Because none of them — not one — delivered the combination of modalities that the research says actually matters.
£711 in abandoned devices. The No. 01 costs £139 and comes with a 60-night guarantee.
See the No. 01 →What arrived in January.
A friend sent me a link to a device by a Swedish company I'd never heard of. Blocq. The device was called the No. 01. It cost £139 — which immediately made me suspicious. Everything else in this category costs three times that.
What caught my attention was the claim: six modalities in one instrument. Red light at 630nm (the wavelength with actual published evidence). Radiofrequency at 1-2 MHz (what the clinics use). Microcurrent at 200-400 microamps. Plus EMS, blue LED, and ionic transmission. All in a five-minute pass.
I ordered it to prove it wouldn't work.
The diary.
90 days. Still on the shelf. Still used every morning.
Check Availability →Why I think this one worked.
It is not because the technology is revolutionary. Red light, RF, and microcurrent have decades of published research behind them. Every dermatologist I've spoken to agrees on the modalities.
What's different is the format. Five minutes. One device. No gel subscription. No app. No 20-minute session that you skip because you're tired. The No. 01 survives the morning because it asks for less than any device I've ever owned. Five minutes is not a commitment. It's a transition between the shower and the kettle.
The other devices failed because they were projects. This one is a reflex.
— Helen D., 54, Harrogate · 12 weeks
What changed.
What I'd tell you honestly.
The first two weeks, nothing visible happens. If you're the type who takes a photo on day 1 and compares on day 3, you will be disappointed. This is not a filter. It is a ritual that compounds.
By week three, the tone shifts. By week six, the structure shifts. By week twelve, other people notice. This matches the timeline the published research predicts — Wunsch and Matuschka's 2014 study showed collagen density improvements over 30 sessions (about six weeks of daily use).
It will not undo a decade of structural loss overnight. Nothing will. But it is the first device I have owned that is still on my shelf in April. That alone is remarkable.
Blocq No. 01 — £139
Six modalities. Five minutes. 60-night guarantee — if the sceptic in you wins, send it back. Or three payments of £46.33 with Klarna.
See If It's Still Available →Kate Morrissey is a writer in Brighton. She has no commercial relationship with Blocq beyond receiving the No. 01 for the purposes of this review.