The Basic Elements Vegan Clay Facial Cleanser + Mask

The Basic Elements is a small, Toronto-based company that is, "...offering the best in handmade vegan and organic beauty alternatives!" I discovered it at last month's edition of the Junction Flea Market where I picked up the Vegan Clay Facial Cleanser + Mask for the very reasonable price of $8.

I often find that indie beauty products, while usually made with top-notch ingredients, don't deliver the results I'm looking for. But thankfully this isn't the case with this dark, muddy product that's both healthy and effective.

At least as a mask. While this duo purpose product is supposed to work equally well as a regular cleanser, I haven't yet tried out that side of it.

But I have used it several times as a mask and each time the results are the same: Smooth, super-soft skin that glows well into the following day. And while this mask doesn't clean out pores, it does do an excellent job at opening pores up so that I can manually clean them out.

Another aspect of this product that I quite like, and that's too often missing in regards to indie beauty products, is solid packaging that contains proper labelling. This product comes packaged in a simple, but practical twist-top aluminium tin that's decorated with elegant labels that list actual instructions (yeah!) and ingredients (yeah!).

And those ingredients are: Fair trade Rhassoul clay, USDA organic glacial marine clay, non-GMO vegetable glycerin, distilled water and USDA organic rosemary essential oil. That's it. The latter ingredient does give a mild rosemary scent to this product that, combined with the clay's natural "muddy" smell results in a scent that isn't the most pleasant but certainly does make this mask smell "natural." While I didn't mind it, people with sensitive noises might be turned off.

Would I buy this product again: Yes! And the next time I'm at the Junction Flea I hope to pick up something else from The Basic Elements' line.

Should you buy this product: Yes! The results are great and the price and ingredients are even better. If you're not able to get down to the Junction Flea, check out The Basic Element's Etsy shop.