The Body Shop Seaweed Ionic Clay Mask

While I don’t love this member of The Body Shop’s Seaweed line as much as I love its day cream, I have to give it full points for having accurate packaging claims.

And those claims are this, “Revitalises, deep cleanses and reduces excess oil.”

With kaolin as the first ingredient and a type of clay as the third, this stuff does indeed reduce oil. And while it’s no Bioré strip, it does a good job of deep cleaning. After you wash off an application of this mask, your skin will look brighter, matter and you’ll be down a few blackheads.

I also find that this product is a great way to “prep” your skin for a real, deep manual cleaning.

The “revitalises” bit of the packaging claim is a little trickier to agree with but I do have to say that this mask does make your skin look revitalised. How it makes it feel is another story.

The big reason why I love the day cream version of this product so much is that it just feels amazing on my skin. I cannot say the same of the clay.

It goes on like a cold, thick paste and then tightens as it dries. At a certain point, the tightening sensation turns to a mild burning one. There are no actual instructions for this product, no “leave on for 10 minutes” line. Instead, you know to when to wash it off because your skin basically says, “Get this crap off of me.”

But while it might feel like it’s burning, I’ve never actually had any kind of visible reaction to it. In fact, my skin’s always looked great after I’ve used.

Because of all of the above, I do have mixed feelings about this product, which costs $22 a jar. I will certainly keep using what I have but once it’s gone, I think I’ll give another clay mask a try.

Would I buy this again: Probably not
Should you buy it: Give it a try but only if you don’t have dry or sensitive skin