The Best Personal Care Gear for Your First Home
Twelve buying guides for the gear you use every day: hair, shaving and the recovery kit for after moving weekend. Prices and star ratings verified on Amazon AU.
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The three that matter first
Home haircuts are the rare upgrade that pays you back: the Philips Series 5000 runs about $37, holds a 4.6-star average, and most households have more than one head of hair to cut.
The most-reviewed straightener on Amazon AU is also the cheapest sensible one: the $49 Remington Shine Therapy sits at 4.6 stars across 34,000 reviews, and the guide explains when the $285 ghd platinum+ is actually worth it.
Foil or rotary is the decision that matters, and the guide settles it by skin type and beard thickness — the Braun Series 5-51 at around $90 is where most faces should start.
Moving in together — or alone for the first time — turns the bathroom shelf into contested territory, and the gear that survives is the gear that gets used daily. The $37 Philips clipper that ends barber-shop scheduling, the Remington Proluxe dryer at $49, a $30 cordless water flosser: small machines, permanent rotation.
The dearer end of the shelf deserves more scepticism, which is what these guides are for. The NVBOTY LED face mask at $161.49 and the LYSMOSKI IPL device at around $85 both work within honest limits we spell out plainly, and the $50 TENS machine is the rare wellness gadget with a physio's logic behind it. Listings are re-verified daily, so prices here reflect the last live check.
The home salon
Heat styling without the salon markup: the $285 ghd platinum+ won our straightener guide, the $49 Remington Shine Therapy matches its 4.6-star average for a sixth of the price, the $41 MBHAIR 9mm wand handles the curls, and the $46 Remington Flexibrush does the blow-dry.
Clippers, shavers and the DIY haircut
Every kind of hair removal: home haircuts with the $37 Philips Series 5000, Braun's $90 Series 5 foil shaver, the $55 Philips epilator if you want weeks rather than days, and IPL from around $85 if you're done paying for salon sessions.
Skin, steam and light therapy
The honest end of the skincare-gadget aisle: the $53 GETANYE nano-ionic steamer is the most-reviewed pick in its guide, and the LED face mask guide is upfront that results from a $161 NVBOTY are gradual, not a medical treatment.
Recovery and slow Sundays
For sore backs and moving-weekend regret: the $90 RENPHO massage gun and $76 heated Nekteck foot massager each cost about one remedial-massage appointment, and a $50 Tiptop Health TENS unit covers drug-free pain relief.
Personal Care questions, answered straight
What personal care gear should I buy first after moving into my first home?
Start with the three items that replace a recurring bill: the Philips Series 5000 clipper at around $37, the Remington Shine Therapy straightener at around $49, and the Braun Series 5-51 shaver at around $90. That's roughly $176 all up for gear that pays for itself within a couple of skipped appointments. Everything else on this page can wait for a payday.
Are home haircuts with a clipper actually worth it?
The Philips Series 5000 HC5612/15 costs around $37 and holds a 4.6-star average, which is less than plenty of barbershops charge for a single cut. Most households end up cutting two or three heads of hair every few weeks, so the saving compounds fast. Start with the clipper and a forgiving guard length.
Do LED face masks and IPL devices actually work?
Honestly: sort of, with caveats. LED masks deliver gradual results and the science on consumer-strength devices is mixed — nothing in that guide is a medical treatment, and the clinic-grade names people ask about, Omnilux and CurrentBody, are better bought direct from their own sites. IPL delivers permanent hair reduction rather than instant removal, and it only suits some skin-and-hair combinations; the $85 LYSMOSKI is a sensible way to test whether it works for you before spending $700 on the Philips Lumea flagship.
The shelf always ends up 80 per cent product, 20 per cent things with plugs. Buy the plugs carefully and the percentages look after themselves.
— Anish Puri, NestPath
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