Review: Boscia Clarifying Detox Mask

Last night I was doing my homework, hopped up on coffee and quesadillas, when I took a moment to wash off my makeup. After I did so, I took a good look at my face and realized how congested my pores looked. So I opened my medicine cabinet, trying to decide which mask to use. I settled on this Boscia Clarifying Detox Mask. I tried a sample of this mask months ago, really liked it, bought it, then promptly forgot it existed at all. It sat, gathering dust in the back of my medicine cabinet for months. After pulling it out last night, I'm really glad to report that it is amazing, and I honestly have no idea how I could have forgotten how great this mask is.

I really like the design of Boscia's masks. They all come in the same size bottle, most have a color associated with them that appears on the bottle, fading from colored on the bottom to white on the top. For example, the Green Tea Oil Control Mask is green, the Bright White Mask is sliver, and the Cool Blue Calming Mask is (you guessed it) blue. This is the only one of Boscia's masks to be contained in an entirely white bottle. I sort of really wish that it had a color to it like the other ones.

It's just a squeeze tube, which works fine for me. I guess I'll see if I have any difficulty with getting product out when I get toward the end of the bottle, but for now, it's great. You can sort of tell from the photo: the mask itself isn't quite white. It almost has just the slightest hint of blue/green/grey to it.

It's smooth, with the slightest scent of mint to it. It feels sort of like The Body Shop Tea Tree Face Mask, but this one will actually dry down on your face, whereas the Tea Tree Face Mask dries, it just doesn't crack.

I think that out of all of my face masks, this one provides my favorite mask-feeling. It tingles, but in a super minty delicious way. Sometimes the Tea Tree Face Mask will tingle too much, then stop entirely. But this Boscia mask tingled pleasantly until I took it off.

It left my face feeling much less congested, and just generally clean. It also didn't give me an issue with my nighttime moisturizer. Sometimes after using a mask, I have to be careful which moisturizer I use because the moisturizer can end up stinging my face, but I didn't have that problem after using this Clarifying Detox Mask. I ended up moisturizing with Origins Night-A-Mins, a product I'm trying out to decide if I'm going to purchase it.

Overall, I loved this mask. I'm definitely going to find a way to show it the love it deserves and work it into my weekly routine.

I'm also in love with the price of this mask. Lately I've been purchasing and using a lot of REN's masks, which come at a pretty whopping price point. They range from $34-$55 for 1.7 oz. In comparison, this Boscia mask is $25 for 2.8 oz.

Finally, just let me say that I hate air conditioning. I'm sitting at work right now, freezing my butt of, actually wishing I was outside in the 90+ degree weather. You know I'm struggling when I would rather sweat that shiver.

Sephora Haul #1

Every once in a while, I do something that I really shouldn't do, and I spend an insane amount of money at Sephora. Usually it has something to do with rewarding myself. That's true of this week's Sephora purchases. I've been holed up with 40 other Resident Assistants and our bosses for approximately the last week, doing training and staff bonding and such. Today, we moved some 500+ freshmen into their dorms, a HUGE accomplishment. I personally helped about 50; there were a lot of boxes, a lot of microwaves, and a lot of my personal sweat. But I survived, and to reward myself, I bought a bunch of stuff online at Sephora a couple of days ago knowing that they would arrive today. So after finishing up with the freshmen, I headed over to the mailroom and picked up my swag!

All the boxes.

Because I'm a VIB Rouge, I get free shipping on any order from Sephora.com, so I broke up my purchases so that I could get the maximum number of free samples possible.

I basically bought everything that had been on my "Loves" page-everything from masks to lip lacquer and eyeliner to eyebrow mousse.

I've had the old versions of the Urban Decay 24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencils on my wish list for so long, it's not even funny. I think spending $19 on a colored eyeliner that you'll only wear once in a blue moon is silly, but dock those suckers down to $6 each, and I'm all over that. Since I already own a teal Kat Von D eyeliner (Waterproof Autograph Pencil in Eyegasm) and a liquid Stila mint eyeliner (Stay All Day Waterproof Liquid Eye Liner in Turquoise), I figured it was time to purchase some purples. I bought Crash, Lust, and 1999.

I think that 1999 is going to turn out to be the most wearable (in fact, I'm wearing it as I type this), and Lust will probably be the one I use the least. But they're all beautiful, and I love increasing my makeup collection.

Crash, Lust, and 1999 on my hand. 

Directly after doing this swatch, I washed my hands, then took a bath, then a nap. And there's still a faint smudge of 1999 hanging out on my hand. They really do mean 24/7 when they say it with these eyeliners.

Then I picked out the Too Faced Ready.Set.Prime duo. I'm a faithful user of the LORAC Behind the Scenes primer, it's one of the best and cheapest eyeshadow primers at Sephora, but I just can't turn down a great deal. These primers are .17 oz each, combined they're .34 oz. It's a $12 set. For comparison, the Too Faced Shadow Insurance retails $20 for .35 oz of product. Needless to say, this was a phenomenal deal. And who knows, maybe I'll love them.

I've been researching brow fillers for quite a while. If you've looked at any of my posts where I've included a picture of myself, you know that I don't have thin or sparsely populated eyebrows. I'm half Greek, so I've always had eyebrows that, to a certain extent, had a life of their own. I think my mom sat me down when I was probably twelve and taught me to tweeze them. And thankfully I avoided that middle/high school issue of overplucking eyebrows. Instead, mine have always been full and I love them that way. They're pretty low maintenance these days, but I've been looking for a way to make them look just a little bit more "solid," I guess. It's a hard thing to describe, but I've been wanting them to make a little bit more of a statement and make me look a tad more put together.

Then I found the Tarte Amazonian Clay Waterproof Brow Mousse in Rich Brown. At first I was a little worried, I have BLACK eyebrows, and I was worried that this would make them look awkward and mismatched. But it's such a dark brown that it blends right in with my black brows. And it's such a great product. It doesn't look harsh like a pencil filler and it doesn't look chalky like a powder. I love it so much I may have to do a separate review of it.

Oh, Ren, how did I live this much of my life without discovering the beauty that is your products and packaging? I recently bought the ClearCalm 3 Clarifying Clay Cleanser and I fell absolutely head over heels in love. It's important to note that I don't even have acne anymore, I did in high school, but I've long since gotten over it (save the occasional stress pimple and the blackheads that refuse to leave the pores of my nose). But I can't get enough of this line of products. I got a sample of this mask from Sephora a couple of weeks ago, and I can honestly say that it's the only mask that I've tried that leaves a NOTICEABLE difference in my skin. The night I tried this mask, I had a stress-related pimple on my forehead. It was red. It was angry. When I washed this mask off, I honestly thought magic had happened. The pimple was significantly smaller. It wasn't red at all. Basically, this is about to become my holy grail of spot treatment masks.

I also decided to try this Shiseido Lacquer Rouge in RD305, or Nymph. I've fallen in love with lip lacquers, and I can't wait to see if this one lives up to my expectations.

It's a beautiful blue-rose color, although it's sort of difficult to see because my camera only wanted to focus on the books in the background. In case you can't tell, I (a) love to read, and (b) I'm a history major (although I'm also a religious studies major).

The Lacquer rouge on a human hand. I'm so excited about this product that I actually almost put it on before my bath/nap. Review to come.

The last product that I actually spent money on: Boscia Clarifying Detox Mask. I got a sample of this from Sephora a couple of weeks ago, and initially when I applied this mask, I didn't think I was going to like it. But I loved the tingling as it dried, it make my skin feel minty fresh. Also, considering that I spent $45 on the Ren mask above, I was thrilled by the $25 price tag on this one.

Sample time! I got four samples of different foundation primers. I'm only 20 and don't struggle with keeping my makeup on my face, so I can't justify spending money on foundation primers just yet, but if offered a sample, I will always accept.

Another thing I love in sample form: shampoo and conditioner. This stuff will definitely come in handy when I travel.

I'm about to run out of my favorite foundation (well, to be honest, it's a BB cream), Garnier Skin Renew BB Cream Combination to Oily Skin in light/medium. I'm worried that once I lose my slight tan from the summer, it'll be just a tiny bit to dark/orangey for me. And I've sort of developed a crush on the Urban Decay Naked Skin liquid foundation. It comes with four different samples in a range of shades, I'll probably fall somewhere in between the included 2.0 and 3.5, but it'll give me an idea on whether I like this foundation enough to spend $39 on it.

The final set of samples that I picked were the Philosophy Full of Promise Treatment Duo, mostly because it was the only remaining sample that I was even remotely interested in trying. I got four samples, each with .14 oz of product, so in total, I have .56 oz of product (.28 of each: the day cream and the night cream). The full size version of this product retails for $75 and you get 1.0 oz of product. If you do that math, that means these samples are worth $42. I love it when samples turn out to be worth that much.

Finally, the random samples. I'm not really sure how I ended up with these, we'll see if I ever use them.

Overall, I love Sephora. An inappropriate amount. I really wish I was in my dorm room playing with all of my new makeup.