Although I’m nowhere close to a skincare expert, my boyfriend’s skincare routine (or lack thereof) is bad enough to make even me cringe. As a self-proclaimed member of the “your face gets washed in the shower anyways” club; he’s baffled by face wipes, confused by moisturizer and absolutely helpless when it comes to cleansers. And so, in a last-ditch effort to make him at least a little excited by skincare (and also to combat a particularly bad breakout on my end), I made it my mission to make him fall in love with one of my favourite aspects of skincare — face masks!
We gathered a variety of face masks from different stores, as well as my own personal stash, in hopes of finding at least one he’d use semi-regularly. As a result, we ended up with six total: The Body Shop’s Tea Tree Oil Face Mask, Sephora’s Bubble Mask, Bath and Body Works’ Superfruit Mask, Life Brand’s Mud Face Mask, Masque Bar’s Charcoal Mask and Sephora’s Red Clay Mask.
And now for the fun part — to make him try them all!
The Body Shop’s Tea Tree Oil Face Mask
The first thought that we both had when putting this one on was how cold it was! It smelled really nice, like tea tree, but slightly overpowering as well. The smell faded as the mask hardened, but then we were presented with a new problem: how stiff the mask was! Every movement felt super itchy and tingly — and not in a pleasant way. It was also a pain to take off, as the green colour makes it easy to stain everything you own. However, afterwards, our skin felt surprisingly soft and smooth and any blemishes we had before looked smaller.
I’ll admit it — I added this mask to our arsenal solely because of all of the hilarious videos of people trying to peel charcoal masks off! And while it definitely didn’t disappoint in the eye-watering pain, it also did a good job of tearing everything gross out of our pores. We were somewhat divided on how much we liked this one — while my boyfriend enjoyed the satisfying sensation of peeling it all off, I couldn’t get over how much my face hurt afterward and the gross tar-like consistency the mask had!
Bath and Body Works’ Superfruit Mask
After getting every hair on our face ripped off, we decided to follow up with something we thought would be soothing. Unfortunately, this mask didn’t live up to our expectations at all: the smell was gross and the sheet mask itself was drowned in so much liquid that it dripped all over the counter. Overall, it was super underwhelming, with no actual change being present after we took it off. It also left our faces sticky, which definitely isn’t what we were hoping for!
This mask was for sure one of the easiest to put on! It was soft, silky and dried without tightening the skin: you could almost forget you had it on! However, the real challenge was presented when we tried to take it off — it got everywhere and the red colour ended up making my sink look like a crime scene. It also left our faces feeling somewhat tight and dry afterward, which wasn’t fun!
By far our least favourite of the bunch, my boyfriend couldn’t even stand having this mask on for the full fifteen minutes because of how much it hurt! Although presented as a soothing, relaxing option, it left our faces tight and stinging and was a pain to wash off. Also, its cocoa butter smell was rather overpowering and kind of gross!
This one was pretty difficult to put on, as the thin sheet mask was prone to ripping, but once it was on it was super fun! The bubbling effect, although it didn’t seem to make any real difference on our skin, was cool to watch and the mask itself was nice and refreshing. However, it kind of smelled like dish soap, which wasn’t super great and easily dripped into our eyes. After taking it off though, our skin was super soft and glowy, albeit a little bubbly!
Overall, this face mask adventure was super fun! My top masks ended up being the Tea Tree Oil Face Mask and the Red Clay Mask, both of which gave me the most noticeable results. My boyfriend went for the masks that were the most fun to put on, with his top two being the Charcoal Mask and the Bubble Mask.
Even though we didn’t pick the same ones, I did succeed in my original goal of finding my boyfriend a face mask he actually enjoyed! It was a super great adventure for us to undertake together and we’ll definitely be doing more face masks in the future!