Our toothbrushes have a live stream camera built in, our straighteners ask us a survey-load of questions before heating up, and our LED masks have so many settings we’re pressing buttons for longer than we’re actually wearing the mask – I can’t be the only one who has beauty tech fatigue?

Beauty is supposed to be a moment of luxury, a brief spell for ourselves amid the chaos of everyday life, but when I’m faced with a barrage of options from my face mask, and I need to open an app on my phone to use my toothbrush, the feelings of relaxation and self-care go out the window and my beauty routine feels like another chore on my to-do list.

Anna Persaud, wellness expert and CEO of This Works, explains the theory behind how I’m feeling. “Technology has given us incredible tools, from devices that track our sleep to beauty tech that helps us care for our skin, but it can also make wellbeing and beauty feel like another set of goals to achieve.

© Getty ImagesOur beauty routine is no longer a moment of calm

“We can find ourselves measuring results, comparing our progress with others and feeling that, simply because a new device or treatment is available, we should be using it to keep up. What starts as self-care can begin to feel like pressure.”

Holistic healer Estelle Bingham reiterates the issues with tech-heavy routines: “We remove the opportunity for a beauty routine to force us to take a moment out, to step away from screens, work or technology, rather than simply wearing an LED mask while we continue to absorb information from a screen, or carry on working at our laptops.”

Perfectly simple toothbrush brand Suri’s co-founder Gyve Safavi adds: “Somewhere along the way, we’ve confused more technology with better products. Apps to download, endless settings, AI features and complicated instructions. Suddenly, something that should be a moment for yourself becomes another task on an already long to-do list.

“I believe the best technology is the kind you barely notice. It should make your life better, not demand more of your attention. If you need a tutorial to get through your morning routine, something has probably gone wrong with the design.”

Too many options

Decision fatigue plays into this issue too; it’s something that impacts many of us in the modern world, and I really don’t need my beauty devices playing into that, which is why I’ve started eschewing tools that require multiple settings in favour of devices that take us back to basics.

I’d had a Suri toothbrush, £105, squirreled away in my drawer, waiting for its moment to shine, and that moment came when I also received the Dyson Camerajet toothbrush, £419.99, which shows you a live stream of your mouth as you brush, shooting mouthwash into gaps identified by the camera.

All of that tech turned me right off, and I turned to my Suri instead. Simple and easy to use. I’ve had an Oral-B toothbrush with a screen and multiple settings for the last few years, and while I loved it (and my dentist said it was doing a brilliant job of keeping my teeth clean), the battery died daily. The tech was too much for it. Suri on the other hand, lasts for a month on one charge. I’m smitten with it – and Safavi understands why: “Consumers are becoming much more discerning about this. They’re not rejecting technology; they’re rejecting unnecessary complexity. Sometimes the most innovative thing you can do is make something simpler.”

The same goes for my new LED patch, £100 for two, from This Works. I’ve tried many, many LED masks and have become tired of the constant evolution of them. I don’t want to have to pick between red, green and blue light. I just want to sit down and feel the self-care the red light promises.

This Works LED patches

Don’t get me started on hair tools. I had a straightener from Cloud 9 which basically required a job interview to use it, asking me my hair type before it would heat up. Granted, you could save your setting once you had it nailed, but I just want to do my hair.

Ghd’s AI-powered Sculpt, £369, is good, because it tailors the heat to your hair without you having to do any admin. Dyson’s Airsmooth is better, as you simply turn it on and go.

Skincare overwhelm

Skincare has a lot to answer to as well. Skin cycling sees us switching up our routines nightly, but I just want one that caters to what my skin needs rather than swapping in retinols and whatnot.

I appreciate that I am privileged to have overall unproblematic skin, so I don’t need to use all sorts of ingredients, but I think Japan has got it right when it comes to keeping a skincare routine feeling like self-care rather than a chore

J-beauty acknowledges that beauty is a moment just for us, and at a recent event with Japanese skincare brand Tatcha, it was pointed out that if you watch J-beauty skincare routines on social media, it’s rarely being performed by a Japanese person. This is because if you’re filming your routine, it’s not for you anymore.

Re-establishing beauty as a calming moment

With the J-beauty approach in mind, I asked Anna how she’d move away from the chore-feeling of beauty, and she said the key is to pay attention to the experience itself and recognising the connection between the brain, body and mind.

Put down the hair styler with a screen, and close the app asking you to track your toothbrushing and hone back into how your routine feels.

© Getty ImagesBeauty has become another chore to tick off

“Our senses are powerful,” she begins. “The feeling of warm water, slow, mindful touch as we apply a body oil, a familiar functional fragrance or a softer, low-lit environment can all provide cues that help us shift away from the demands of the day.

“Through repetition, the brain can learn to associate a particular sensory stimulus -such as a familiar fragrance or the feeling of a warm bath – with a moment of rest. Over time, these associations can support patterns of thought and responses that help the autonomic nervous system shift towards a more parasympathetic, or ‘rest and digest’, state. We may then feel calmer, more relaxed, and more able to rest.

“The goal is to create an experience that feels restorative for you: a moment of calm, relaxation and connection with yourself.”

The post Our toothbrushes, straighteners and LED masks have got screens – it’s no wonder we’ve got tech fatigue appeared first on Best oLive.

What began with a pair of blue-light-blocking glasses has evolved into a broader wellness technology business with red light at its centre. Bon Charge co-founder Katie Mant speaks to Retail Beauty about building a category before consumers understood it, knowing when to rebrand and why the next phase of beauty tech will be won on evidence rather than hype.

When Katie and Andy Mant launched their business from Perth in 2017, the beauty technology landscape looked very different.

LED face masks had yet to become a regular fixture across beauty feeds and bathroom cabinets, wellness technology remained relatively niche, and the business that would eventually become Bon Charge was focused on a considerably narrower proposition: blue-light-blocking glasses.

Originally launched as BLUblox, the company was born from the founders’ own search for a solution to the amount of artificial light accompanying increasingly screen-heavy lifestyles.

“Andy and I were both fighting our own sleep problems, Andy especially, working long hours on screens late into the night,” Katie Mant tells Retail Beauty.

“When we went looking for blue-light glasses that actually blocked the right wavelengths and didn’t look like gaming goggles, they didn’t exist. So, we made them.”

What followed offers a case study in building a business around an emerging consumer behaviour — and then recognising when the category has moved beyond the proposition that first established it.

“The early years taught us that building a new category is really about education,” Mant says. “You can’t sell the solution until people understand the problem.”

Today, the proposition extends well beyond the blue-light glasses that launched the business. Bon Charge operates across red light therapy, PEMF and circadian lighting, positioning itself at the increasingly blurred intersection of beauty, recovery, performance and longevity.

That breadth also reflects the founders’ complementary perspectives. Andy Mant has become closely associated with the performance optimisation and biohacking side of the business, while Katie brings a stronger focus on women’s wellness and beauty — a combination that has helped Bon Charge broaden its relevance as wellness technology moves further into everyday consumer routines.

From niche technology to beauty routine

Red light therapy has become one of the most visible parts of the at-home beauty-device market, helped by the proliferation of LED masks and growing consumer interest in treatments that sit somewhere between skincare, beauty technology and professional aesthetics.

There is legitimate scientific research behind photobiomodulation, although the evidence should not be interpreted as meaning every device or every marketing claim is equally supported.

Clinical research has found benefits from particular LED protocols for aspects of skin appearance. A randomised controlled trial involving 137 women, for example, found both 660nm red light and 590nm amber light reduced periocular wrinkle volume following 10 sessions over four weeks. Earlier randomised research has also reported improvements in wrinkles using 660nm LEDs. (PubMed)

The important distinction for retailers is that wavelength, dose, treatment protocol and device specifications matter. Photobiomodulation is a defined light-based technology rather than a catch-all term for anything emitting red light; the US Food and Drug Administration describes PBM devices as delivering non-heating light energy and has specific regulatory guidance covering medical devices in the category. (US Food and Drug Administration)

For Bon Charge, that shift from curiosity to scrutiny is becoming commercially significant.

The company’s Global Wellness Tech Trend Report 2026, based on a survey of 7,000 adults across Australia, the US, UK and UAE, found 34 per cent of respondents reported using red light therapy, while 86 per cent of red-light users surveyed said they had started within the previous two years.

Beauty is playing a significant role in that uptake. According to the brand’s research, improving the appearance of dull or tired-looking skin was the most commonly cited primary motivation for using red light therapy, at 27 per cent. The report also found adults under 35 were leading adoption across the wellness technology categories it surveyed.

For Mant, however, the change in consumer behaviour is unmistakable.

“Consumers have shifted from ‘what does this claim’ to ‘what can this prove’,” she says. “They want efficacy and evidence, not just aspiration.”

The rebrand that unlocked the next stage

By 2022, the business had another problem: the name that helped establish it was beginning to restrict it.

BLUblox described a company built around blue-light management. By then, its portfolio had expanded into red light, infrared and other wellness technologies.

The founders made the decision to retire BLUblox and relaunch as Bon Charge.

“BLUblox captured where we started, but not where we’d transformed into,” Mant says.

“The name spoke only to blue light blocking, while the business had grown into something far broader. Bon Charge gave us room to reflect that fuller picture, red light at the core, and a mission bigger than any single product.”

For beauty founders, Mant believes there is a broader lesson in recognising when brand equity has started to become brand constraint.

“When your name starts explaining less than your product does, it’s a sign you’ve outgrown it,” she says.

Beauty tech’s credibility problem

The expansion of at-home beauty devices has created opportunity, but it has also made the category considerably more difficult to navigate.

LED masks now sit across dramatically different price points and specifications, while terms such as “clinically proven”, “science-backed” and “medical grade” have become powerful marketing currency.

Mant argues the next stage of the market will require consumers — and the retailers curating products for them — to look beyond those descriptors.

“Ask for the specifics,” she says. “Credible brands publish their wavelengths and irradiance and can point to independent research.

“Be cautious of vague claims, missing numbers, and ‘clinically proven’ with nothing behind it. Third-party testing, transparency about what a device does and doesn’t do, and honesty about limitations are the real tells.”

It is an increasingly relevant distinction.

Scientific evidence supporting a particular wavelength or photobiomodulation protocol does not automatically substantiate the performance claims of every commercial device using similar technology. Device design, irradiance, dose, treatment time and intended use can all influence outcomes.

Bon Charge has responded to that credibility challenge by assembling a Scientific Advisory Board spanning medicine, metabolism, dentistry and wellness. Its current board includes Dr Rangan Chatterjee, metabolism researcher Dr Susanna Søberg and Dr Shabana Daya, a physician whose qualifications include a diploma in clinical dermatology.

Mant says that scrutiny is intentional.

“They guide our product innovation, validate our technology, and keep us honest about what the evidence supports and what it doesn’t.”

Building beyond beauty

Perhaps the more interesting development for retailers is that Bon Charge no longer sees red light as belonging exclusively to beauty.

The brand is positioning the technology across beauty, wellness and recovery — categories that were once merchandised and marketed relatively independently but increasingly overlap in the consumer’s routine.

That strategy has extended into sport. In February, Premier League club Fulham FC announced Bon Charge as its Official Red Light and Recovery Partner, integrating the brand’s technology into its recovery environment. (Fulham FC)

For Mant, that crossover reflects a wider change in how consumers think about wellness technology.

“Previously, the focus was solely around beauty and skin appearance,” she says. “Now, we are noticing a notable interest from a recovery perspective and this is only growing.”

The move also broadens the addressable consumer beyond the traditional beauty-device shopper.

Bon Charge’s 2026 research found men and younger adults were among the groups driving wellness-tech adoption, challenging assumptions about who is buying into a category that, at least at retail, can often be presented through a predominantly female beauty lens.

The founder lesson: scale exposes the cracks

As the business expanded internationally, Mant says some of its biggest lessons had relatively little to do with marketing.

“The biggest lesson was to earn one market before chasing many,” she says.

“What surprised us most was how much of international growth comes down to the unglamorous work — logistics and compliance are far harder than building the product, and every country has its own rules for wellness devices.”

Her advice for Australian beauty and wellness founders contemplating international expansion is similarly pragmatic.

“The two things I’d tell any founder to get genuinely sorted before you scale are your science and your supply chain because growth doesn’t fix your weak points, it magnifies them,” she says.

“Every gap we hadn’t closed came back to find us the moment volume picked up.”

There was another lesson: global expansion did not require disguising the brand’s Australian roots.

“Early on you assume you need to sound bigger, more polished and more ‘global’,” Mant says. “The opposite was true as being a credible, no-nonsense Australian founded brand has been one of our greatest assets.

“Lead with what makes you different, not what makes you blend in.”

Where beauty retail goes next

Bon Charge’s trajectory reflects a bigger shift underway across beauty retail.

The line separating skincare, devices, wellness and performance is becoming less distinct. At the same time, consumers have access to more scientific information — and considerably more marketing dressed up as science — than ever before.

That makes curation increasingly important.

For retailers, the opportunity may therefore be less about simply adding another LED mask to the assortment and more about helping consumers understand why devices differ, what specifications matter and what the available evidence can — and cannot — establish.

Mant believes the brands capable of answering those questions will have an advantage.

“This generation treats wellness as daily and preventative, not an occasional treat or a fix when something’s wrong,” she says.

“They blend beauty, health and performance into a single routine, and they research relentlessly. They’ll reward retailers who curate for credibility and take the time to educate, and they’ll walk away from anyone who overpromises.”

That principle is also shaping Bon Charge’s next chapter.

Rather than expanding indiscriminately across the rapidly growing wellness-device market, Mant says the company intends to concentrate on its core categories and deepen its investment in evidence.

“What’s next for us is really about depth over breadth,” she says. “Rather than chasing every new device or trend, we want to keep raising the bar on evidence.”

For a company that began by having to explain why its category existed at all, it marks a notable shift.

The challenge is no longer convincing consumers to pay attention to wellness technology.

It is convincing an increasingly informed consumer which technology deserves their trust.

The post Inside Bon Charge’s bet on the booming beauty tech market appeared first on Best oLive.

Last Updated:March 09, 2026, 16:07 IST

From skincare gadgets to wellness tools, explore beauty devices that match your personality and transform everyday routines into personalised self-care rituals.

Your beauty routine should reflect who you are.

Beauty routines are no longer just about products; they’re also about personality. The tools you reach for every day often reflect how you approach self-care, whether you love high-tech innovation, mindful wellness rituals, or quick and effortless glam. As beauty evolves into a more personalised experience, choosing the right tools is less about trends and more about what fits your lifestyle and mindset. From smart devices to calming skincare tools, today’s beauty essentials are designed to align with who you are and how you like to care for yourself.

The Effortless All-Rounder – For the one who loves versatility with minimal effort

Dyson Airwrap i.d Multi-Styler & Dryer

From casual mornings to special occasions, the Dyson Airwrap i.d. is the perfect styling companion to create effortless waves, a voluminous blowout, or a sleek finish. Equipped with Bluetooth wireless technology, it customises airflow and temperature based on your unique hair profile, offering personalised results at the touch of a button. It’s a thoughtful blend of innovation and elegance, giving her complete freedom to style her hair the way she loves.

The Glow-Getter Skincare Devotee – For the one who prioritises skin health and radiance above all else

SEMINO Advanced LED Light Therapy Mask

SEMINO LED Photon Therapy Mask is ready to get a glowing facial mask. Completely cordless and with your field of vision unobstructed, you can go about your day as if you were wearing a pair of glasses. It only takes 10 minutes of use a day to start seeing incredible results in the condition of your skin, making it ideal for someone who treats skincare as a dedicated ritual and seeks visible, long-term glow.

The Minimalist Who Loves Speed – For the one who wants polished hair in a single step

Dyson Airstrait Straightener

For those who believe in quick, fuss-free routines, the Dyson Airstrait straightens hair directly from wet to dry using powerful airflow instead of traditional hot plates. By drying and styling simultaneously, it delivers smooth, natural-looking straight hair while maintaining shine, with no heat damage. Perfect for the minimalist who still wants salon-worthy results.

The Holistic Wellness Lover – For the one who believes in natural beauty and mindful rituals

Effora’s 3-1 Red Light Therapy Scalp Massager

Designed for those who see skincare as a moment of calm rather than a chore, the Effora Massager brings together modern innovation and holistic self-care. Its gentle massage action helps stimulate circulation, support lymphatic drainage, and relieve facial tension built up from daily stress. Regular use enhances the skin’s natural glow while encouraging relaxation and balance.

The Smart Luxury Minimalist – For the one who values design and effortless performance

Dyson Supersonic Nural Hair Dryer

Designed for those who appreciate innovation that works seamlessly, the Supersonic Nural is Dyson’s most advanced hair dryer yet. Powered by intelligent Nural sensor technology, it automatically adapts airflow and temperature in real time to optimise drying while protecting the scalp. With Scalp Protect Mode and precise heat control, it delivers fast, smooth results with enhanced natural shine.

The Precision Skincare Perfectionist – For the one who wants deeper cleansing and targeted results

Medicube Booster Pro

A high-performance, total-care beauty device engineered with six advanced functions to maximise skincare efficacy at every step. The Medicube Booster Pro works to enhance the absorption of active ingredients deep into the skin, refine skin texture, improve firmness and elasticity, and boost overall clarity and radiance. Designed for those who rely on data-driven beauty and visible results, it targets concerns such as dullness, uneven tone, enlarged pores, and early signs of ageing.

The Instant-Glow Skincare Maximiser – For the one who wants visible results in minutes

FOREO FO Smart Face Treatment

This handheld, full-facial smart device brings professional spa treatments to your fingertips. Combining T-Sonic massage, pleasant warming, cooling therapy, and full-spectrum LED light, UFO enhances the penetration of active ingredients for instant glow, hydration, and visible rejuvenation. The cooling finish locks in benefits while reducing puffiness, making it perfect for everyday skincare as well as pre-occasion skin prep.

Location :

Delhi, India, India

First Published:

March 09, 2026, 16:07 IST

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