Nip & Fab Dragon’s Blood Sheet Mask

Well, it’s been a good few months since I did a Face Mask Friday post – I think I last posted one back in March time, so it feels a little overdue since I delved into my stash for something untried. Despite that I do feel like I’m making okay progress on finishing up bigger pots and tubes of multi use masks – I’ve seen a couple hit my empties and I’ve got a few more that are getting close. Over the weekend though, I decided I needed a boost of hydration and the Nip & Fab Dragon’s Blood Sheet Mask was a fresh arrival in the ASOS beauty box last week and it seemed easier to use it than find another!

Nip+Fab is a brand that I’ve had limited, but good experience with in the past, I’ve tried mainly things from their Glycolic Fix line- if not exclusively, which is the line which seems to get the most hype and love. But I was excited to finally dip my toes into another of the lines from the brand, and how is a name like Dragon’s Blood not going to garner your attention?

Nip+Fab as a brand have their identity locked down – their packaging is consistent on every product and as a whole without their logo it’s easy to recognise their brand. Each line comes in different coloured packaging when it comes to their skincare, and the Dragon’s Blood Range is bright orange and black. Packaged like the majority of individual sheet masks in its own foiled packaging.

The texture of the Nip & Fab Dragon’s Blood Sheet Mask says it’s a hydrogel, but it’s more like a mesh like tissue mask to me, hydrogel I think of as being thicker, rubber like textures and this one was just odd. It was very solid feeling for a tissue mask and unfolding it it was difficult to get out the very defined ridge from down the middle of my face, which added to the strange fit that the mask seemed to have. Normally face masks are a little bit of a big fit and you can smush the mask up to match up with your orifices.  This one the location of the features just didn’t match up, the area between the nose and the lips was massive, and it’s more structured texture means you can’t smush it up and it was constantly being dragged down. At the same time the mask kept lifting off down the creased area in the middle. Bearable for the 15 minutes I had on, but a little irritating.

There was a lot of serum soaking the mask, and when I’d got it out of the packet I noticed a lot of extra too which I squeezed out and slapped all over my neck and hands too! Masks like this can often have an effect on the skin – but didn’t seem to have any effect on the skin, cooling, tingling or otherwise.

When I think of moisturising sheet masks, I always have to compare it to the Garnier Moisture Bomb mask – it’s a few pounds and can often be found on offer in Boot’s or Superdrug meaning you can normally pick it up for about £2. It performs well and offers instant, noticeable results that can be seen for a day or two. So as this one has a price tag of £7.50, and I could pick up several of those Garnier masks for the price of one – I expect top notch performance.

It’s a hyaluronic acid based sheet mask which is something my skin normally laps up, I’m very familiar with how it works for my skin as an ingredient in good dosages. The Dragon’s Blood is an ingredient I had to look up and it comes from the sap of the Croton Lechleri tree, the ingredient is described as acting as a protective shield like a second skin which soothes the complexion.

I left this on for as long as I could bare and until dried out and because of the lifting issue I couldn’t get it to sit on my face, I suspect this happened slightly faster than it should have after just over ten minutes. There really wasn’t that much excess product still sitting on the skin but any last residue I rubbed in. Once skin had lost all tackiness I inspected my skin for it’s man claims, plumpness and moisturising.

Visually my skin doesn’t look particularly plump at all – I paid attention to the areas that are starting to age on my nearly 30 year old skin, and I felt like none of those areas really looked any different, I wouldn’t however say that lack of plumpness is a skin issue I really suffer with, so maybe there’s not enough depletion to see an increase yet (we’ll tell my fearing 30 self that that’s the silver lining!). With regards to it’s hydrating performance my thoughts were *ehhh* mediocre.

I’ve definitely seen and had better and it didn’t come close to the performance of the Garnier Sheet mask aforementioned. My skin felt hydrated, but not necessarily any different to what any bog standard moisturiser would do for my skin, and not close to the performance of my current favourite Pixi Rose Ceramide cream which makes my skin so soft overnight!

The fit of the mask would be enough to put me off purchasing the mask again, whilst the performance was okay – a mask for me is a relaxing experience to force me to take 15-30 minutes out of my day to sit down and chill. The constant readjustment I was having to do was frustrating and for the price of the mask for a single use I’d want more.

It’s a shame and I think the Nip & Fab Dragon’s Blood Sheet Mask was my first dud from the brand. I enjoyed the Glycolic Mask from the range for oil control (that reminds me, I should dig that out!) and it’s a shame that this one wasn’t the same hidden gem.

Have you tried the Dragon’s Blood range from Nip & Fab before?

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