The steamer DOES heat up in 3 minutes and lets you know with a peep that it's done heating up, it does point out in the booklet though that it sometimes could take a couple of minutes more then 3 minutes to heat up, probably depending on how much water you put in, or how cold the water is you put in there to begin with!
The timer works very well too and I did not find the beep too loud. When the time you set is up and it beeped, the Steamer emmidietly shuts itself off!
The Steamer comes with a little cup to fill the right amount of water in the steamer! I found one cup is enough for a good five minutes of steaming! When I want to steam longer I simply fill twice the ammount in which works just as well.
The facialtube is big enough for my face! To reach all the areas in the face, to get the hairline and to intensivy the effect all at the same time I always use a big towel over my head. I find that it has the same effect then even if you are not all the way on the facialtube, good to know for people with bigger faces, in addition to that I find it even more relaxing to steam away in the darkness under the towel- feels like going into your own world a bit!
The Microdermabrasion piece works great, spins two sides and runs in two speeds as well as it comes with two differend heads, one for the abrasion and one for massagning moisturizer in!
