The hi-tech make-up bag

The latest must-have gadget is a sleek box that fits snugly into the palm of your hand. With its two-tone silver finish and simple lines, it's tough to say exactly what it does. Is it a compact digital camera? Is it a new luxury smart phone? It could be an 80GB MP3 player or perhaps it's a next-generation pocket projector. But this gizmo isn't designed to play tunes or take calls but to improve the quality of your skin – more specifically, to zap spots – using cutting-edge technology.

Called No! No! Skin, this device promises to deliver "professional acne phototherapy" in your own home. It uses Light & Heat Energy (LHE) technology, which dermatologists around the world use, and costs £138 (www.selfridges.com) – a lot more than the average tube of Oxy spot cream. But expense aside, No! No! Skin is one of a new generation of gadgets that forgo communication and entertainment functions for making its users more beautiful.

Designers have long tried to make women's beauty routines easier and more effective by creating innovative products – as well as to encourage female shoppers to buy the next big thing. Hairdryers have been around since Victorian times and the first eyelash curler – the Kurlash – went on sale during the 1920s. In the Sixties, many women were still using clothes irons to tame unruly curls, but in 2001 one of the biggest beauty innovations to date launched – the GHD hair irons, which pulled hair taut between heated ceramic plates – rather than the metal used in most tongs. The devices cost around £100 but they revolutionised home hairstyling and proved there was a huge female market for hi-tech grooming.

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"Beauty gadgets are definitely on the up," explains Zara Rabinowicz, a beauty and technology expert for gadget website www.shinyshiny.tv and cosmetics blog www.kissnadmakeup.tv. And she thinks that rather than being pricey, cleverly conceived products can actually be a bargain. "Beauty treatments are expensive so people like to invest in the kind of products that allow them to have treatments at home. And companies are realising that if they add extra features they can make their products stand out a bit more."

What stands out about the new wave of beauty gadgets is their form as well as their function. Stop, an anti-ageing skin renewal device, gives the futuristic design of the latest iPod Shuffle a run for its money. NuFace, a toning, anti-sagging treatment is a neat white block which fits in the palm of your hand, topped by two chrome orbs to run over the treatment area. No! No! Hair, a home hair removal system, is another slick gadget you could store on your dressing table instead of hiding away in a drawer.

Two major technological developments are meeting in the middle here: the first is the understanding that women want more from home beauty products than a plastic tub to soak their feet in over an episode of Coronation Street. Then there are the scientific breakthroughs which have allowed treatments previously only available in a spa or surgery to work in the comfort of your bedroom or bathroom. "Products like Skin and NuFace are taking over from creams," explains Christine Benson, head of beauty buying at Selfridges, where beauty gadgets are a major new market – since launching No! No! Hair in August over £1m worth of the £140 devices have been sold, and they are introducing new gadgets all the time. "There are no side effects and they work like a face workout, or facelift. Using them can put off surgery for five or 10 years."

So effective and successful are such gadgets, wagers Benson, that the big cosmetic brands will be introducing similar products into their lines by the end of next year.

One such giant, Estée Lauder, unveiled its own secret weapon earlier this year – TurboLash, the world's first vibrating mascara wand. "The world of microelectronics is exploding," says George Kress, Estée Lauder's vice president of package innovations. "We are finding ways to enhance products through the use of energy to deliver additional benefits and enhance appearance. For instance, there have been a number of innovations in the skincare area with vibration and how vibration activates the skin to respond to a particular treatment. One afternoon, I went to the store and saw a display for a new vibrating razor and something clicked in my head. I started to think about how it might be interesting to apply this concept of electronic vibration to mascara."

The £28 turbo-charged mascara, which claims to deliver volume, length, definition and curl to its users' lashes is powered by a button cell battery which is turned on as the cap is twisted to unscrew the brush wand. It sounds straightforward but this innovation took four years to develop. "It was a long process from the early prototypes, which were quite crude – bubble gum and bailing wire –so to speak," admits Kress. "In the end, it took a group of 45 physical scientists, researchers and developers, as well as nearly 100 product development, engineering and manufacturing experts to create TurboLash mascara."

But this dedication looks likely to pay off, thanks to the exponential growth of the beauty market. In the US alone, the skincare market reached $5.8bn (£3.9bn)last year in sales, and the world market for anti-ageing products is forecasted to be worth $15.8bn by 2010. Experts recommend starting to use anti-ageing products in your late twenties as the amount of collagen the skin produces begins to drop off after the age of 16, and is halved by the time you hit 40. As for home gadgets such as these, the projected growth is a massive 87 per cent per year for the coming year.

Benson says the new gadgets available at Selfridges have outsold expectations and predicts they will continue to be a hit in the New Year. "The technology for these gadgets has advanced," she says, "and people are not afraid to bring beauty technology into their homes where they can benefit from the effects rather than booking external salon or clinic appointments."

But not everyone is convinced by the beauty industry's attempts to lure in new customers by adding chrome cases and a mini-battery.

"Women want technology to enhance and simplify their life and a vibrating mascara for most women would just add the "fear" factor to what is already quite a difficult task!" says Belinda Parmar, advertising expert and author of the Lady Geek technology blog (ladygeek.org.uk). "This is technology for technology's sake. It's a gimmick, and completely nonsensical." But she is interested in developments which would see genuinely useful functions added to existing products. "Imagine if you could have a chip in your mascara that tells you 2 weeks before that you need to replace it? This is the type of thing women care about."

Either way, now that product designers have got a handle on what women really, really want, you can be as proud of showing off your spot treatment or rejuvenating gadget as you can your mobile or MP3 player. "I think that iPod design has had a big effect on these gadgets," says Rabinowicz. "For a lot of hi-tech beauty products the price point is similar to an iPod so if you're paying that kind of money you do what something stylish, you don't want ugly devices that are cheap and plasticky with bad packaging."

So if you can afford to, wave goodbye to soap and water and say hello to the face of the future.

Grooming gizmos: How they work

No! No! Hair, £140

No! No! Hair is a pain-free alternative to waxing, but you will have to put some effort into using it. The box hides a wire blade which heats to 2000C and shines red when it is ready to tackle your hair. The blade doesn't actually come into contact with your skin, instead the "Thermicon" technology transfers energy down the hair shaft as it burns away the hair on the outside. The heat reaches into the hair follicle and disrupts the hair growth cycle so that it stops growing at all, but this isn't an instant fix: it promises 64 per cent less hair growth after using for a year. www.selfridges.com

Stop, £396

From the age of 16 skin begins to produce less collagen which makes it appear lined, dull and sagging rather than the plump youthful look everyone is after. Professional salons use TriPollar technology, which transmits high radio frequency waves into the skin to stimulate the production of collagen. Use for 15 minutes three times a week for the first four to six weeks on the face, neck, décolletage and even hands, and once or twice a week afterwards to maintain your youthful glow. I tried it on tired, parched skin and the results were incredible – just 15 minutes later I looked as if I'd had 12 hours sleep and my skin was plumped out and shining. www.stop-age.com

Perfect skin analyser £17.95

Want to know what's happening with your epidermis? This mini-scanner detects the levels of moisture, oils and softness of your skin. It displays the results on an easy-to-read LCD screen so you can find out once and for all if you have a combination, oily or dry complexion and buy unguents accordingly. www.alt-gifts.com

NuFace, £175

Another product which uses micro-technology to counter the effects of ageing. A current is fed into your skin via the two metal spheres on the end of the chunky gadget and it works to firm and tighten the skin, lifting and toning the face, reducing and eliminating fine lines and wrinkles and even improving the pigment of your skin. Micro-current technology is used in many professional spas to stimulate the production of collagen and blood circulation, as NuFace does. www.mynuface.com