Ask an Expert: Masks
What Does a Face Mask do For Your Skin?
A mask is like a big “shock” treatment to the skin. It will indulge your skin in a short amount of time, with an overload of active ingredients to wake up all skin functions, making it look beautiful and radiant; like a mini salon facial at home! It is very important to give your skin time to relax, to let the mask do its job. The down time will stimulate the production of serotonin, resulting in a big rejuvenating action for your skin. Serotonin protects your skin cells against oxidation (damage) by cortisone. Cortisone is your stress hormone, and serotonin is your feel-good hormone.
Lying down with a mask and relaxing for a while will definitely make you feel good.
How Often Should I Apply a Face Mask? Is It Better To Do So In the Morning Or At Night?
Ideally, finding time twice a week to apply a mask will leave your skin glowing, while minimising pores and evening out skin tone. Moreover, the relaxation-time you take will have a big effect on the overall health of your skin. When the skin muscles relax, your face will look younger!
Whether you prefer to use a mask in the morning or in the evening is not important. See what suits you best and try to regularise this in your personal weekly schedule.
How Can I Best Apply the Powdered Masks?
The Abloom Skincare masks are very special. All the organic wild crafted plants, flowers, veggies, roots, and herbs are freeze-dried and ground into a powder. The big advantage of this procedure is that all the 'activity' of the ingredients is kept until the powder is mixed with a liquid.
At Abloom Skincare we advice organic honey, organic goat yoghurt or organic kefir to be used as mixing agents. It is important that the mask, once applied, stays humid on the skin. If it dries out, the effect will be much less. If you mix the mask powder with water or tea, it will dry out before the 20/30 minutes are over, diminishing its effect. If you don’t have honey, yoghurt or kefir in the fridge, you could spray water or tea with a vaporizer if you feel its getting dry.
Honey, yoghurt and kefir have one very important effect in common : they all contain powerful enzymes. These little particles are the handy men in ( skin ) cells; they throw out toxins and use the nutrients from the food you eat to strengthen the cells. Using these powerful ingredients to mix the masks with will have double the stimulating and rejuvenating effect on your skin. Make sure when choosing honey, it is organic ( else you will have chemical fertilizers in your mask ) and choose goat yoghurt, it has more enzymes then other type yoghurts. Kefir is a fermented product, so also very high in active enzymes.
Mix the masks with your ingredient of choice in a one to one ratio. Just put some mask powder in a bowl or in the palm of your hand. Then put the same quantity of liquid and a few drops of water (to make the substance easier to handle). Mix it and apply to your cleaned face and neck area. You can go near your eyes and over your upper eye lid if you like, the mask is totally safe to do so. Then... relax! Put your legs up, breathe deeply, and close your eyes.
After 20 to 30 minutes you can put a warm cloth on your face and take the mask off. Rinse with a lot of water and end with a splash of cold water. You could also wet the tip of your fingers and massage the mask firmly into the skin at the end of the 30 minutes. This gives an extra boost to your skin. However, don’t do this on a very sensitive or acne prone skin, it can be a little bit too much stimulation.
Are There Any Products I Should Use My Masks In Combination With In My Skincare Routine?
The Abloom Skincare masks are a salon-worthy experience all on their own! To have some variation in your mask experience, you could add a couple of drops of the Abloom Miracle Treatment Oil into your mask. This is especially recommended if your skin is very stressed or dried out. After taking off the mask, always end with the soothing gel or hydrating toner, and finish with day or night creme and the miracle treatment oil.
