SkinFood Mask Reviews

SkinFood is known for their flavorful and palatable face masks, which is why I'm so excited to try a few of them! I love how SkinFood uses common Asian ingredients for their products, such as black sesame and ginseng. I definitely don't see those ingredients in health products at American stores! My SkinFood purchase from their San Francisco location came with five different face mask samples, so here I will test a couple of them out.  Note that because I received these samples from an American SkinFood branch, all the information is in English.

Ginseng Mask
I am so ecstatic to sample SkinFood's Ginseng Mask!  I love ginseng, its properties of making one feel rejuvenated, and I especially love ginseng in Korean ginseng soup.  According to SkinFood's website, this mask is meant to give you a "pure, luminous complexion" because of its main ingredient, ginseng, from Geumsan County, the largest ginseng market in South Korea.

The instructions say to place and gently massage a generous amount of product onto your face, then let it sit for five minutes and finally rinse the mask off with lukewarm water.

This mask is very fluid and runny.  It is translucent with an earthy yellow hue and contains soft, pulverized ginseng. 

The Pros

• The scent is a mild, bitter ginseng smell, which is amazing for avid ginseng lovers like myself.
• The texture is very soft and gentle, which seems great for sensitive skin.
  

The Cons

• Honestly, my face looked and felt the same after rinsing off this mask.
• The mask leaves a very thin layer on your face, so you need to use a lot of product in order to really feel the mask working at your skin.

Because this is my first time using this mask, I am not able to see a radiant complexion that I might have seen had I used this product frequently.  Overall, I was falling in love with everything about this product, until I washed it all off. Then I realized that I didn't see nor feel any effect, not even the morning after. I would use this product just for the fun of putting one of my favorite foods on my face, but nothing more.

Black Sugar Mask
I'm not so thrilled about the idea of putting sticky, goopy sugar on my face (I hate sticky substances getting on my hair), but I decided to give this mask a shot anyways.  I suppose hard sugar would exfoliate skin, which is a plus.  According to Skinfood's website, indeed this mask does exfoliate dead skin, as well as "revitalizes skin," brightening the complexion, I suppose.

The directions on the SkinFood website suggest mixing this mask with water or toner to reduce skin irritation, depending on how sensitive your skin is.  Apply the mask onto wet skin and massage, then let the product sit for 10-15 minutes and wash off with warm water.  I'm an impatient person, and 15 minutes is a long time, but when I have My Flower Boy Neighbor to watch, I sometimes let the mask sit ever longer (^_^).

A side note, I noticed a couple of my SkinFood samples had a printed white sticker covering the back of the sample, so I peeled it off to reveal the original print. The original back had Korean, so I'm guessing for the American stores SkinFood had to put the information, such as ingredients, in English.

This mask is very rough, consisting mostly of crystalized sugar and melted sugar. It's also tempting to taste! Surprisingly the product is more fluid than sticky, which is much easier to work with.  Because this mask is so gritty, I feel like the exfoliation happens instantly so it can also be used as a scrub, if you're an impatient person or you're in a time crunch. This mask also feels more like a scrub than a mask in general, so the benefits may be just as effective leaving the mask on for only a couple of minutes rather than 10, which is how long I left it on.

The Pros

• The scent is quite pleasing, like a mild coca cola.
• My face and hands are very smooth and polished afterwards (but not soft).
• The mask exfoliates my skin really well.

The Cons

• The product is very rough, especially when massaging all over my face.

Overall, I do like this mask and I would use it again. However, I would use it as a scrub and add plenty of water on my face and in the product to soften the consistency and more easily spread the product around my face.