Clay masks: L’Orèal Vs Body Shop

Clay face masks are flooding the market at the minute, claiming to act as a magnet to draw out impurities from clogged pores and refresh tired skin. After my fourth and final freshers week, my skin was anything but fresh! The alcohol, 3am McDonald’s and lack of sleep had taken its toll and I needed to hit refresh on my skin.

Everytime I’ve walked past a Body Shop recently I’ve been drawn to their displays of their new face masks range. I had been hesitant to try masks due to the £15 price tag but at this point my skin needed all the help it could get. After debating between the various options I settled on the Himalayan Charcoal purify glow mask.

 This face mask is packed with bamboo charcoal from the Himalayan foothills, green tea leaves and tea tree oil. This blend of ingredients gave the product a fresh, pleasant smell and it easily spread on the skin. Body shop do sell a face mask brush to aid application, but I’m happy to stick with using my hands! There was a slight tingling sensation and after around 10 minutes the mask felt tight and was ready to rinse off!

Starting to tingle

After using this my skin did feel brighter and looked somewhat clearer. Due to not having particularly oily skin I did feel that this dried my skin out a little, but nothing a little extra moisturiser couldn’t fix! Overall I was pleased with the result but had expected more for the £15 price tag however I think this would work wonders on acne prone skin!

During a recent shopping trip to Boots I spotted the L’Orèal clay face masks on offer for £5 and couldn’t resist. There were three options to choose from; detox, glow and purity. After a good 5 minutes of debating with myself I settled on the detox mask, which promises to cleanse deep into the pores without drying out the skin.

This mask uses a blend of 3 different clays and charcoal. The pot claims to offer 10 applications working out at just 50p a time (bargain!). The mask had a slightly creamy texture than applied like a dream. The product smelt so good!!! So fresh and clean!

This product didn’t take quite as long to dry and felt tight after around 8 minutes. After removing this product I could see a significant improvement in the blocked pores around my nose and chin, literally half my blackheads had gone!

Despite being fairly similar is ingredients and claims, the L’Orèal product impressed me much more. The effects were instant, it was like someone had held a magnet over the pores around my nose! Despite delivering more intense results than the Body shop mask, this one was nowhere nearly as drying. To top it off the price difference makes the L’Orèal face mask the clear winner in the battle of the clay masks. If you suffer from clogged pores of just want a refresh on your skincare I can’t recommend this enough!

Xxx