Neither Glam Nor Glow

By Liwen Yao

The Rough Rider (Honolulu, Hawaii)

What it is supposed to do:

  1. Fight all common skin concerns including breakouts, discoloration, black and white heads, razor bumps, and ingrown hair.
  1. The mask draws out dirt and congestion while it brightens and softens the skin.

Main ingredients:

Kaolin, charcoal, mandelic acid, glycolic acid, lactic acid, salicylic acid.

Kaolin and charcoal absorbs the sebum from your skin. Mandelic, glycolic, and lactic acid exfoliate your skin, and salicylic acid targets the breakouts and unclog pores.

On Sephora’s website, it states that after consumer’s one day of use, 94% of their skin felt renewed, 91% saw improvement in skin clarity, and 94% felt the mask gently cleared their skin.

The GlamGlow SuperMud mask ($69 for 1.2 oz or $22 for 0.5 oz) had a thick clay-like consistency which made it hard to spread on my face. While the mask dried, my skin felt a cool, minty, tingly sensation that was a bit on the strong side. When drying, the color turns into a lighter shade of grey and allows you to see dark spots where the clogged pores are at.

The smell of the mask had a strong and fresh smell, like peppermint and eucalyptus. Because of the strong scent, it might not be as pleasant to others.

My skin felt smooth, soft, and tight. Though it fought all the common skin concerns, my skin felt really sensitive and dry afterwards. My skin had red discoloration in some areas which never happened when I used other clay masks before, showing that the GlamGlow mask was too intense.

The first time I tried the GlamGlow SuperMud mask, I could see that my pores had gotten smaller, I had less blackheads, and my skin felt soft and smooth, but the mask made my skin sensitive due to the strength of the ingredients.

The Body Shop’s Blue Corn 3-in-1 deep cleansing mask is another face mask I tried ($18 for 4.2 oz.). The Body Shop’s mask’s, cleanses, exfoliates, and purifies with blue corn powder. As the Blue Corn mask works as a mask, it can also be used as a scrub while you are washing you face off with water. Screen Shot 2016-02-04 at 1.49.39 PM

The smell was not as strong as GlamGlow’s mask, and the way my face felt was not as intense either. The GlamGlow mask says it fought common skin concerns, softens and smoothes your skin, but all I felt was the masks’ harsh tingles my face felt. Price wise, the Blue Corn Mask is more affordable than GlamGlow’s mask.

Overall, I would recommend The Body Shop’s Blue Corn mask’s instead of GlamGlow’s Supermud clearing treatment. I felt that Blue Corn mask unclogs my pores better without being too harsh and it does not leave my skin feeling as tight and dry like the supermud clearing treatment.

About Grace Masback


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