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After just recently reviewing another company's mud mask, I thought this was the perfect time to try out this one and compare. I’ll begin with some general thoughts on this mask, and then I’ll get to the comparison…
First off, I wasn’t too impressed with the packaging. I don’t like tubs to begin with, and especially with something like a mask (which you would definitely want to remain hygienic), it’s a huge disappointment for me. I can tolerate it with a body butter, as the skin on your body is usually less reactive to germ exposure than the skin on your face, but I get really squicked by face products that come in tubs. I imagine I’ll be able to use this mask maybe a handful of times before I start to worry the product has been too contaminated to continue using on my face without prompting a breakout.
Getting past the packaging, the next thing I was confronted with was the smell. This mask has an incredibly strong scent – one of the major ingredients is eucalyptus oil, and you can’t miss the menthol odor at all, but it also has a strong earthy smell from the mud. I’ve used plenty of mud masks over the course of my life, and many had no strong odor, so there must be ways to get around the earthiness present in the mud. When combined with the intense eucalyptus, it’s not all that pleasant… I do enjoy the smell of menthol (as I’ve mentioned in the past, I love using tea tree oil as skincare), so if that was the only detectable scent, I’m sure it wouldn’t bother me in the slightest. It’s the combination with the mud smell that takes things into questionable territory.
Fortunately, the product itself doesn’t fall flat. This is what I expect from a mud mask: thick, dense consistency that sits heavy on the face and dries really solid to the point that it’ll crack if you move your face too much. It really feels like it’s pulling out anything trapped in my pores without parching my skin, and after rinsing it off, I was left with a squeaky-clean feel that was fresh but not at all tight. In this regard, I think the eucalyptus oil is a brilliant addition to the formula – it really works well with the mud to purify the skin. I also love how it seems to calm some of the redness in my skin, leaving it very even-toned and almost glowy. Pure & Essential Minerals has done an excellent job of including ingredients that condition the skin without being too moisturizing, with the end result being what I consider to be the perfect mud mask.
Overall, I’m of a mixed opinion on this mask. If only the packaging and scent weren’t so off-putting, I’d definitely repurchase this and add it to my usual rotation because the formula truly is awesome.
As compared to the Adovia mask I recently tried, I think the results end up being a wash… The squeeze-tube packaging Adovia uses is far-and-away my preference, and it doesn’t have any significant odor, but the formula was just okay and not what I expect from a mud mask. I’d much rather use the Pure & Essential Minerals mask for the results it gives, if only it also came in a squeeze-tube. I could probably look past the odor if the packaging were better, since the formula is so great.
You can purchase the Pure & Essential Minerals Dead Sea Mud Mask at Amazon.
