REN Glycolactic Radiance Renewal Mask

I have to admit that sometimes I don’t want pricier products, like this one that retails for $55, to wow me. Because if I am wowed, I’ll want to buy the product and that can be problematic when you’re not wealthy/have a husband who doesn’t understand why you keep buying beauty products.

Thankfully, I don’t have to worry about that with this item because while this face mask is OK, it’s not great and certainly not worth $55.

Containing glycolactic, lactic and citric acid, this peel is, “…designed to renew the complexion, reduce the appearance of fine lines and dramatically improve skin tone” and should result in all kinds of wonderful things for your skin, including a “brighter, healthier, more radiant” looking complexion. REN also says that this mask , “Combats congestion, blackheads and blemishes.”

Personally, I did find some of the above to be true. There’s no doubt that this sticky mask does remove dead skin cells and surface dirt and it certainly did leave my skin looking brighter and feeling much softer. But I wouldn’t say that it “dramatically” improved my skin tone nor did I notice any difference on my fine lines, even after using this mask for several weeks in a row.

More disappointingly, this mask did nothing to fight or reduce blackheads and other blemishes. While I knew it likely wouldn’t, I was really hoping that this would be product that would finally be able to get down into my pores and clean them out.

But nope, this mask did nothing to remove existing blackheads or, from what I could tell, prevent future ones from forming. However, it did do a great job at softening and loosening things up so that I could do some manual extractions. But then The Body Shop’s Warming Mineral Mask also does that at a much cheaper price (and it feels great on your skin).

Of course, one of the reasons why REN is so expansive is that it’s one of the healthiest lines out of there, thanks to not including containing things like parabens, sulfates, synthetic fragences and colours, PEGs and more in its products.

Would I buy this product again: No. For $55, I want to see some blackheads being removed.

Should you buy it: Nope.