Friday, July 15, 2011

The Body Shop’s Warming Mineral Mask

The Body Shop’s Warming Mineral Mask is total guilty pleasure of mine. I call it a guilty pleasure because it’s a product I love to use even though it doesn’t really benefit my skin (though as I describe below, I have found one positive use for it).  But it feels so great on that I don’t care, I use it anyways.

This mask really is self-warming and not “lukewarm” but actually warm. It feels like clay that’s been sitting out in the hot sun all deal, slowly cooking until it’s reached the ideal muscle-relaxing temperature. For some reason, this warming sensation only kicks in after you've applied it to your face so besides feeling great, this stuff also seems a little magical.

Sadly, this warm feeling lasts under a minute before gradually cooling off, but the fact that its warm at all puts it miles ahead of other clay masks.

While the “warming” feature is this product’s main selling feature, its packaging also mentions how it contains ginger and cinnamon oils. While these ingredients don’t bother my very unsensitive skin, they can negatively react for other people so if you have sensitive skin, you may want to skip this product.

Another packaging claim is that this product deep cleanses skin since its warming power opens up pores. Now, I’m sure it does clean skin to some degree but I won’t say it deep cleans it since the blackheads that were on my nose prior to the mask are still there once it’s been washed off.

However, it certainly does soften skin up and I’ve found that this mask is an excellent prep step to do before manually cleaning pores out. Yes, yes, I know that’s a practice that some people frown on but I swear, if you do it carefully and cleanly, it can result in great-looking skin.

At around $18 a tube, I wouldn’t exactly call this product cheap, particularly since it lacks any real benefit. But if you can pick it up during one of The Body Shop’s many sales, it’s worth it.

Something else that’s also notable about this mask: It comes with instructions. Yes, unlike far too many Body Shop products, this one clearly states right on the package how you’re supposed to use it. If Body Shop can include that info on this guy, why can’t they do it on all of their items?

Would I buy this again: Yes
Should you buy it: If you don’t have sensitive skin, go for it

No comments:

Post a Comment