Above: Skinfood Black Sesame Hot Mask
Skinfood is a popular skin care line from South Korea and is very popular in Asia. They offer a range of beauty and skin care items with delicious ingredients that are staples in Asian cultures for centuries. Growing up in an Asian family, my mom always encouraged me to eat certain food items that are healthy and would promote beautiful skin and hair. Black sesame is a staple for keeping hair healthy and strong. In addition, black sesame deserts are oh so delicious!
This mask is very hard to find since I have no idea where I can get it in Canada or anywhere in North America. I have to order it on Ebay from a seller in Seoul. Since I learned about this mask from Phyllis at Makeup for Life, I have been itching to try it and I was excited when it finally arrived from the other side of the world. I wanted to try this mask because the thermal qualities draw out impurities in the skin and clean the pores to achieve softer and smoother skin.
The mask comes in tub and I like to use a brush to apply the mask to reduce bacterial contamination. It smells great, just like black sesame dessert soup. Ingredients include black sesame extracts, phospholipids and vitamin E. I find the black sesame seeds a nice and gentle exfoliator on my skin. The texture is dark, googy and sticky but on my skin it dissolves into a semi-clear film with little black sesame seeds. Although the mask is sticky and googy, it does not drip.
To apply I gently massage this on my skin with water in a circular motion and leave it on for about 5 minutes. Since this is promoted as a hot mask, I was expecting it to be at least as warm as the MAC Volcanic Thermal mask or warmer. Unfortunately, this mask did not even heat up or even mildly warm on my skin. As I wash this off, I can feel my skin feeling very soft and moisturized. However, after using this mask twice, I broke out severely into big red and painful cystic zits that took more than 3 weeks to heal. I am very disappointed in this product because I have had high hopes for it. I still have a whole tub left and I can’t use it on my face, fearing another serious breakout. Since it has exfoliating qualities, I might end up using this as a scrub for my body instead.
