Review of Freeman Feeling Beautiful Dead Sea Minerals Facial Anti-Stress Mask (Freeman masks BOGO free at ULTA until June 29)

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I picked this up recently, and I thought I'd give you an overview of my thoughts on it, since Freeman masks are on BOGO free from ULTA until June 29. I absolutely loved the first Freeman mask I tried, so I wanted to branch out, and the Dead Sea Minerals Anti-Stress Mask looked promising. It has clay to absorb oil like the Avocado & Oatmeal Clay Mask that worked so well. There were some other ingredients I was less sure about, but it was rated as highly as the avocado mask, so I went for it.

Here's the description from ULTA's website, which sounds pretty good (I've underlined the parts that I tested for):

Description

Unwind from the grid by treating skin to a much needed respite with this nutrient rich mask. Dead Sea Minerals and sea salts replenish and balance moisture while purging clogged pores. Lavender and Bergamot help achieve an aroma-therapeutic bliss to rinse away stress for smooth and radiant skin. Perfect for all skin types.

Let's look at the ingredients first:

Water/Aqua/Eau, Bentonite, Kaolin, Propylene Glycol, Macrocystis Pyrifera Extract, Sea Salt, Lavandula Angustifolia (Lavender) Oil, Citrus Aurantium Bergamia (Bergamot) Fruit Oil, Tocopherol, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Montmorillonite, Magnesium Aluminum Silicate, Titanium Dioxide, Disodium EDTA, Sodium Polyacrylate, Diazolidinyl Urea, Methylparaben, Propylparaben, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Methylisothiazolinone, Fragrance (Parfum), Butylphenyl Methyl Propional (Lilial), Linalool, Hydroxymethylpentyl 3-Cyclohexene Carboxaldehyde (Lyral), Blue 1 (CI 42090).

The bolded ingredients are the clay. The italicized one are the iffy essential oils. They are in there mostly for the scent, I think, but lavender and bergamot oils are not ideal ingredients in skin care, especially for your face, and especially-especially if you have sensitive skin. They can both cause sensitization and irritation (including contact dermatitis when exposed to sunlight). Lavender can also cause fucking skin cell death, which is not a good thing for aging skin. Bergamot is a "photosensitizer and has photomutagenic properties, meaning it can induce malignant changes to cells". Yikes.

I decided to give the mask a try anyway, for a few reasons:

1. It was recommended by friends who didn't indicate that they had a bad reaction to it.
2. I'm not allergic to those oils, and I've never had a reaction to them before.
3. They're in the middle of the ingredients list, which means that there aren't huge quantities of them (though probably enough to cause a reaction). I usually follow the rule, which I think I got from The Beauty Brains, that if they aren't in the top 5 or so ingredients in the list, there isn't too much of them. Lavender is the 6th ingredient, if you don't count the water.
4. I wasn't planning to go outside wearing the mask, so the problems with exposure to sunlight shouldn't crop up (though those ingredients can irritate sensitive skin and do their cell murdering shit without the sun).

So I picked it up and tried it last night. First of all, it is bright blue! It looks pretty cool. It has more of a gel-like texture than the avocado mask, which is more mud-like. It is easy to spread, though it has a tendency to thin out and not apply in a consistently thick layer. It didn't do the cool thing that the avocado mask did that made it look like it was sucking oil out of my pores by creating little dark spots over them. It also didn't sting my eyes as much as the avocado mask while it was drying.

The smell is very nice. It has that sort of scent that you'd associate with things labeled "sea" or "ocean", but not in an artificial way. Does that make any sense? I couldn't really detect the lavender in it, oddly enough. That part of the fragrance was pretty subtle. I didn't notice myself relaxing, particularly, while I was using it, but I think that's mostly a psychological thing that you have to consciously encourage yourself to do.

I rinsed it off with water after it had dried, which took about 10 minutes. After rinsing, my skin felt very tight and dry. It also looked a little tight and even flaky. Any surface oil was definitely gone, but I really felt like I needed to moisturize. It was slightly uncomfortable, but there was no irritation.

Today my skin looks and feels about the same as usual. I don't notice that my pores are really any smeller or clearer, despite its claims of "purging clogged pores".

Overall, I don't like this nearly as much as the avocado clay mask. While the avocado mask is full of soothing ingredients, the dead sea minerals mask has a few potential irritants. It dried out my skin significantly and didn't clear out my pores. It didn't relieve stress for me, and I don't think it is ideal for all skin types.

I don't hate it, but I probably wouldn't buy it again. I think this would be best for someone with very oily skin, as opposed to my oily/combination skin, since it definitely does a good job of absorbing surface oil. I wouldn't recommend it for dry skin, and definitely not for sensitive skin. It also might be nice if you enjoy the routine/ritual of applying a facial mask, waiting for it to dry, and removing it. It does smell lovely, and that could be soothing. Personally, I think masks are kind of a pain in the ass, and so I'm only really interested in them if they will make significant improvement in my skin.

For my money, I'd use the ULTA deal to get 2 of the Avocado & Oatmeal Clay Masks. If you're ordering online, you can also use the code 104162 to get $3.50 off a $10 purchase, and offset the shipping a little. If you need to get up to $10, those Simple face cloths and this Simple SPF 15 moisturizer are also BOGO free - both excellent choices. You can mix and match within each brand.

Have you tried the Dead Sea Minerals mask? How did you like it? Was your experience similar to mine, or totally different? Have you tried any of the other Freeman masks?