I love the description in this retro ad of what 'The Skin Machine' does:
"It cleans pore-polluting face dirties, slime and grime, cruddy gook, smutty soot, grubby scum, muck and sludge, oil pools, slicks and grease gobs like a wash cloth can't"
The makers of Clarisonic claim these same benefits for their product, but in a little bit different way:
"Exfoliation removes the outer layer to reveal the newer skin beneath. This shedding of the outer layer unclogs pores, keeps skin clean, helps reduce acne breakouts, and may even reduce fine lines and wrinkles."
The Clarisonic also claims to better than a washcloth and that it -
"Removes 6X more makeup than manual cleansing - and 2X more dirt and oil than cleansing with your hands alone."
It would be interesting to obtain both the Skin Machine and the Clarisonic to test them out and see which one does a better job.
(Of course, the Skin Machine wasn't 'sonic' though, so perhaps not a fair test - and might be a little hard to obtain as it's no longer being made.)
Lucky us with Sonic technology!