Review: The Body Shop Seaweed Ionic Clay Mask

If there's something that I love, it's a good face mask. And I own more masks than I can actually use up in my lifetime, but I just keep buying more. I try to use masks as often as possible, at least 3 or 4 nights a week. And I like variety in my life: I'll use clay masks, sulfur masks, brightening masks, masks that do double duty as scrubs. I'll even dip into a good anti-aging mask, even though I'm only 20.

But I come back to clay masks time and time again. There's something about them that I just can't get enough of. I love Origins Clear Improvement, and I love GLAMGLOW's Super-Mud Clearing Treatment even more (although, to be perfectly honest, I've never bought the GLAMGLOW mask--it's $69!! So instead I just regularly ask for the Sephora beauty consultants to make me samples of it). This leads me to The Body Shop's Seaweed Ionic Clay Mask.

This mask has gotten rave reviews from folks on The Body Shop website, as well as on various beauty blogs. My sister over at Nature with Nurture did a review of this mask recently, and Jen just didn't like it. But I was stupid. My brain argued, "Just because your sister doesn't like a beauty product doesn't mean that you'll feel the same way. You should buy it." I should not have listened to my brain, Jen was entirely right. Although, she disliked it for different reasons. If you want to read her review, you can find it here.

Of the clay masks I've tried, this one has a thicker consistency. It definitely wouldn't be smart to put it in a squeeze tube. And I like The Body Shop's mask packaging because you can stack them one on top of the other (I have three The Body Shop masks, so stacking them REALLY saves space).

It's a pretty light grey color--it's the lightest clay mask that I've used.

So, obviously, I put it on my face. Sorry about the non-natural lighting. I don't do masks during the day. You'd probably have to pay me like $50 to get up early enough to do a mask in the morning before I get ready for classes. It's just not going to happen.

I went about my business. When I did this mask the other night, I was in the middle of reading for class, so I plopped down on the couch and became super enthralled in my assigned readings. Until this mask started to sting. And I don't mean sting in a oh-that's-tingly-I-wonder-if-it'll-start-hurting-but-it-feels-kind-of-nice sting. I mean, it stung in a oh-my-God-why-is-this-killing-me-I-need-to-take-it-off-like-now-or-my-skin-is-going-to-burn-off-ow-ow-ow.

But when it came to this mask, I was just flat out stupid. Maybe I was stressed that day, so I tried to power through in an attempt to not give up. It stung so strongly that I had trouble focusing on my homework, but I swore to myself that I wouldn't give in to the pain.

So the mask dried (mostly). By the time it was as dry as it looks in that photo, I was done. I couldn't do it anymore. So I took it off. Even taking it off hurt. When it was gone and I was just rinsing my face to ensure that there weren't any tiny remnants, the water hurt my face. Drying my face with a towel hurt. To be exact, it felt like the area directly surrounding my nose had been chemically burned.

So I thought, "Okay. That hurt. I'm going to use a very basic night moisturizer to try and make this better, otherwise my face will probably look like the Saraha Desert in the morning." I used Korres Greek Yoghurt Advanced Nourishing Sleeping Facial. It's about the most bland, non-irritating moisturizer I've ever come across. AND EVEN THAT HURT.

Here's a beautiful picture of my nose area after I took off the mask. The amount of redness on my face here is just absurd. And even worse, it was sort of raised and bumpy and red. Exactly what I want in my life: a face that looks like I have a rash. Not to mention that you can basically see every pore on my face.

Luckily, by the next morning my face didn't look diseased. I had survived The Body Shop Seaweed Ionic Clay Mask. I think it's safe to say that I'll never use this mask again. Since I can't give it to Jen because I already know she doesn't like it, I'll probably give it to one of my sorority sisters. It's so well-loved, I doubt that my reaction can be something commonly experienced by folks. And in case you were wondering, it retails for $22 (4.2 oz).