Tropical Pampering and face mask mania

If I had all the money in the world, I would be booking regular  facials at the beautician and be pampered non stop. Sadly, I am  only an administrative assistant and I am more or less living on  my overdraft. Temptations arising from my daily blog reads don't  help but I've never been raking in money, even before I started  blogging. Lately, I've started a face masks routine at home, whereby  Sunday is dedicated to a weekly facial.


This is how I had envisaged it would go before embarking on this  routine:
On a Sunday evening, around 8pm, I would pat myself on the back  for having prepared a week worth full of blog posts. My flat  would be immaculately clean and tidy. You could smell the lemon  of Mr clean on the floor, you could actually have your dinner on  the floor it's that clean. I would then decide to relax, burn a  coconut candle maybe, sip a cup of decaf coffee, nourish my nail cuticles, apply a face mask, then quickly jot some notes down  about face mask for blogging at a later stage. I would go to bed, refreshed and  nourished from the inside.


This is how it usually goes:
It's 22:39 and I realise that I've  done naff all, all week end apart from tweeting myself into  oblivion, complaining there was not enough sun for taking  pictures for the blog, and watching 7 episodes of 24 back to  back. The flat is an absolute tip, so I decide to put on a face  mask at 11pm because what the hell, wasting a further 15 minutes  out of a whole week end is not going to make it worse, is it? I  would go to bed, with a lovely nourished skin while it's chaos  everywhere else.



When I first shared with you my purchase of the 'self heating smoothie mask' with apricot, peach and mango, I remember one of  my readers warning me that 'Be really careful with the heating  facemask from there. I felt like Samantha in the episode of SATC  when she has the facial peel'. I took little notice of it. I am  a big fan of sauna masks. Psychologically, when it heats up, it  cleans better, and the cleaning gets deeper.  The same way as  you soak a crusty porridge bowl in hot water to dissolve the  dried left overs, cleansing your skin with heat is better, well,  in my head anyway.





The claims of this smoothie mask are quite big: For 99p, it  claims to whisk you to the tropics, turn up the heat, deep  cleanse your skin and intensely moisturise it.






I decided to put  my mask in the bath while I had a head full of dripping  conditioner. On opening the sachet, I was greeted by a lovely  smell of mango peach and the most delicate texture. I thought  the mask really deserved its smoothie name. I couldn't wait to  apply it on my face. Heating sensation was not as hot as I  expected but it was hot enough to make me feel it's doing  something. Immediately after removing the mask, I felt it had  cleansed my skin really well (I felt squeaky clean) but my skin  felt a bit tight and dry. Not what I would expect from a  moisturising mask!


I didn't moisturise my skin right away and was still in the  bath, rinsing my hair and going about mah business, in the bath.  I couldn't wait to get out of the bath and moisturise my face.  Following morning and it was a whole different story: My skin  looked brighter, felt so smooth and the feeling of dryness and  tightness had totally gone. My skin felt so clean, it almost  felt a little bit like I had a salon micro dermabrasion the night  before. This feeling of smoothness lasted about 1 week and a  half which is more than a regular exfoliation or home micro  dermabrasion done at home would give me.



I feel this mask is very potent, maybe too potent for me and I  don't even have a sensitive skin. I feel I shouldn't repurchase  it but I have been thinking about it all the time ever since.  The only thing which has stopped me from re buying it is the  fact that, surprise surprise, my local store didn't have any. I  wouldn't recommend this mask for anyone with a sensitive skin. I  wouldn't even recommend for me, to be honest but this deep down  cleanse felt so good, and the smoothness lasted so long that I  want it  again in my life and soon!



What about that immediate tight and dry feeling you had after  removing the mask, will you ask?
I think I can remedy to that.  My ultimate favourite body scrub does exactly the same: If I  don't go and moisturise right after, it leaves my skin tight and a little bit itchy. So I reckon if I tone and moisturise right  after, I should be ok.



Now for the annoying part. Superdrug redesigned all their face  masks, I am a bit lost and I don't like the new look of the  masks. I think the smoothie mask has survived the redesign. I  mean the packs look ok, but I preferred the old design. I can't  help but thinking someone went to complain to Superdrug and  thought that the model on the packaging was always Caucasian and  that it was not representative of the multi ethnicity of  Britain. So maybe it's better after all. Well, at least, it’s not god awful packaging like montagne jeunesse. Sorry but I just can’t go past the packaging of montagne jeunesse masks, why do they all have stuff in their eyes, painful!







Any masks from this new collection which you fancy trying?



I reviewed the 'superfruit smoothie one' here if you fancy reading about it
There are so many I want to try. Superdrug needs to make a 3 for 2 offer me thinks.




What: Superdrug Self Heating Smoothie Mask
Where: Superdrug
How much: £0.99
Disclaimer: I bought these myself