Soap and Glory Face Masks – Face Mask Friday #50

I said a few weeks ago that I was coming up to the Golden Anniversary edition of my Face Mask Friday posts and that I was thinking of doing something a bit different for the big five-oh. So a follower called Sarah emailed me to ask if I’d tried the new Soap and Glory Face Masks yet as she was curious as to whether I thought they were any good and whether they were worth a go. I decided to pick up three out of four of the masks that were available and have been trialling them for the past few weeks.

The Soap and Glory Face Masks from the range are all priced at £4 each, and being Soap and Glory means that they’re on 3 for 2 quite often – and is when I chose to pick my three up. I opted for the pore refining, black head ripper outer and the moisturising masks. The one I decided not to go for was a radiance boosting one, as it’s the type I’m always least likely to reach for and already have plenty of in my collection. One thing I like about the range is that each of the masks is different, it’s not all one type of sheet mask that you have to take their word on that one serum is different to the next. The experience of each of the Soap and Glory Face Masks is very different.

Soap and Glory Face Masks – Speed Plump – Miracle Moisture Mask

So first up, Speed Plump – described as a Miracle Moisture Mask – sounds really promising. After a real cold zap of weather over the past few weeks, my skin has been looking and feeling a little dehydrated. I thought this would be a perfect one to try on a lazy day about the house, prior to an evening out to give me a hopefully good base to start with. This is described as being a blend of Hyaluronic Acid – something my skin usually loves, as well as Pink Flower Power-3 Complex – a mixture of Safflower, Peony and Rosa Rugosa – a type of wild rose that produces hips. The three together created a rather surprising smell, with those three ingredients I would have expected something quite floral, very floral – but it smelt quite sweet and fruity.

This is a hydrogel mask that I really like the feeling of on the skin, it felt really cooling and soothing on the skin. Unusually – in the limited experience I’ve had with hydrogel masks – it came in two pieces, with a top half and bottom half that came packaged and folded up individually with plastic that made it easy to slide of each piece.

I found the dual pieced mask created quite a good fit and I was able to make it mould to my face shape well, the only thing I did find was the mouth gap was a little small, I have big lips, not huge lips and the gap was only just big enough before it would have overlapped onto my lips. That being said when the mask was first applied it felt very wet and had a tendency to slide around a little and I felt a bit melty snowman. After around 5 minutes the serum started to feel less wet, more sticky which helped it stay in place for the rest of the wear, which was around 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes or so I removed from my face and found that the serum was mostly already absorbed by y skin, there was a thin semi-sticky layer left, that disappeared once I’d massaged the rest into the skin. After about 10 minutes I revisited the change in my complexion and I did find that my skin looked and felt more plumped and hydrated and I was pretty pleased to find that makeup went on smoothly later in the evening.

Sadly the next morning I felt like the effects of the mask had all but worn away – it was nice as a little skin pick me up, but for £4 I would have liked to see an extra day of smooth and hydration.

What a Peeling – Purifying De-Clog Mask

The De-Clog mask was actually the first mask I tried, but I also revisited it at the end. Unlike the other masks in the range this comes in two pods so you get more than one use of mask. Now I will say that I think this is pretty pricey for a mask of this type, if I take a general look at peel off masks, from that famous Shills mask to T-Zone Charcoal peel off mask – masks in this range come in at around the 5-8 mark and they will give you a lot of uses, my Shills mask is almost empty and Ben an I have frequently used that over the past 8 or so months. At £4 for two applications this does feel a bit steep.

My second problem with these pods is that they’re slightly too big – I’d say around a third of this was waste for me, and I don’t have the smallest of faces, I attempted to keep the waste by cling-filming the pod, but when I checked it the next day it had already dried up.

On the packaging this lists itself as coming with a free scoop which really over dresses what it is – a small fiddly bit of plastic that’s really hard to get hold of an drips the mask everywhere. Honestly more ended on me, on my hands than if I’d just gone in neatly with my fingers, so after the first time of attempting to use this, the second time I just went in with my hands and the application was a lot quicker an cleaner.

Onto the pluses – it’s pink. It’s a little more postman friendly than a full on black mask, but equally – yes you do look like a bit of weirdo. I let this settle an dry for around half an hour or so, as in my experience the longer you leave these the easier, and more effective they are once they become as solid as possible and almost “at one” with your skin, sinking and solidifying into every pore and attaching itself to every blackhead. Compared to others I’ve tried I don’t think this one sets as hard or as dry, and it didn’t peel away in one fell swoop but it did come away in several smaller pieces.

I felt a dinstinct lack of pain removing this which when you go for a mask of this type is usually a bit disappointing as if you can’t feel it tearing stuff out, is it really doing anything? And on inspection of the peel I had to guess that no it hadn’t – and my skin certainly didn’t feel or look much different. When I tried out the second pod of these I wondered whether I was struggling to see the white clogged sebum because the mask was pink and it was just a bit harder to spot – because I certainly knew my pores were clogged, I could see it, so after another disappointing experience I decided to follow up with my trusted, almost empty Shills – and yep it ripped the gunk straight out.

This is really well reviewed on Boots and I’m wondering if there’s some magical trick I’m missing, but at £2 per pop for me this one is a dud and won’t be one I’ll revisit in future.

The Fab Pore – Pore-Refining Mask

With my enlarged and clogged pores I was really looking forward to trying out the final mask in this trio. The Fab Pore claims to be skin smoothing, and a treat for oily and combination complexions – an extension to the already popular Fab Pore line. This contains ‘Blot-A-Lot’ Technology, and ‘Poreshrink-R2’ and ‘Cool Capsule Smooth’ – Soap and Glory are just making a load of words up here for me as they don’t explain what any of this supposedly means on the packaging.

It wasn’t until this was on my skin that I actually read the ingredients emblazoned on the front, with White Willowbark, Lemon Balm, Tea Tree, Eucalyptus, Mint – all products my skin loves – and then, oh shit Lavendar. Red flashing warning lights – allergy alert. The combination of these ingredients smelt lovely and relaxing. Despite the lavender, I decided to stick it out and remove if my skin felt really inflamed. Luckily for the most part all the other cooling ingredients managed to counter balance the effects of the lavender, and for the first ten minutes or so the mask felt very cooling on the skin. But in the last 5 as the cooling effects started fading and I could feel my skin start heating up – at about the 15 minute mark I decided to remove.

The texture of this Soap and Glory Face Mask was pretty interesting, it was very thin and almost felt mesh like, and the mask felt totally drenched in serum, with plenty of excess in the packet to rub all down the neck too. I liked how it felt on the skin, but it was a bit difficult to unfold and get onto the face. I did notice right after I took these pictures that the nose flap was turned up on the inside and it was difficult, to try and navigate pulling it round.

When I removed my skin did still feel quite wet and I massaged it into the skin – it still took a good 10 minutes before my skin felt like it had fully absorbed and dried down. Afterwards I noticed that my skin to the touch felt very soft – dare I say softer than the moisturising mask? So I got up to inspect my pores from the sofa and I noticed that they did look slightly – and I do mean sightly smaller. Where it did leave me most impressed was oil control for the next day or two, I felt like my skin didn’t get as oily through the day both in look and feel.

Out of the three this has one has to get the biggest thumbs up from me – as an oily skinned gal, anything that manages to keep that at bay works well for me!

Overall I’m impressed with the sheet mask and it’s left me intrigued to see what radiance mask from the range delivers. I would say if you’re looking to purchase then to wait out until they’re on offer. I think these are a little expensive buying as a one off, but if you can get them on three for two for example it’s a little more palatable. Dexter (my dog) ate the packaging of the peel mask before I had chance to check, but the other two masks are made in Korea for reference, and do not test on animals.

Have you tried the Soap and Glory Face Masks?

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