GlamGlow YouthMud Review

The past week and a half my skin has been the equivalent of an angry teenager on Dr Phil. I’ve been experiencing breakouts left right and center and it has just been a mess in general. Which is really disappointing because up until then I was pretty chuffed with how my skin was; the surface was all even, I didn’t have a single bump and I also had barely any redness. Then my skin just went crazy and it was basically caused by pure laziness on my behalf of the past two weeks. I’ve picked up a few more shifts this fortnight and have been working more double shifts than usual which had led to me coming home, wiping my makeup off with a cleansing wipe and falling asleep. Because of skipping my skincare routine of: double cleanse, exfoliate, face mask, serum, treatment and moisturiser in replace of a single makeup wipe, my skin is acting out hardcore.

I have wanted to try GlamGlow products for quite a while but the price, along with the reviews and the fact it is jar packaging had put me off. Especially with most reviews saying the product almost immediately dries up as soon as you open the jar. But when I was in my local Mecca Maxima last week I noticed that they sold little 15-gram travel jars of the product for $25 that I thought was a good way to try the expensive product for a fraction of the cost. So I picked up the little jar of the GlamGlow Youthmud Tinglexfoliate Treatment Mask and was on my way.

Before I purchase a product the online reviews are always a massive deciding factor and boy did this mask have a lot of reviews, most of them negative. If you go online and Google this particular mask you will see a lot of negative 1 star reviews. So with my own review I’m essentially going to go all ‘MythBusters’ on it and take the main concerns from the reviews of the mask on Sephora and put them to the test.

First off I applied this to my face using my trusty Bloom Liquid Foundation brush, which is seriously the best brush for applying facemasks ever! I applied a thin layer to my face and saw all the leaves that the reviews talked about, but they weren’t that bad, just like tiny pieces of paper. One thing I didn’t see? Twigs. I don’t know what facemask they were using but mine certainly did not contain any twigs.

Next concern to address? The burning fiery pits of hell many said their faces experienced as this dried. As the mud started to dry I only experienced a slight tingly feeling on the areas of my face that had enlarged pores, so it was only on my nose and a tiny bit on my cheeks. As someone who has suffered from some nasty bouts of cystic acne in the past this was like a marshmallow cake compared to some of the topical acne treatments that essentially burn off your epidermis. Once the mask is dried you will see little dots over your problem areas. These little dots are actually the oil rising to the surface from pores and mine were worst on my nose and I had a couple here and there on my cheeks. It was actually pretty fun having a look at them once the mask had dried.

Next up was washing it off. Now I read one review from a girl who said she could not get this off her face at all with water and that she scrubbed and scrubbed but it still wouldn’t come off. It eventually took her a few face washers and three towels to remove it and that once finished her skin was left irritated and red from all the scrubbing and she had to throw out her towels.

So when it came time to wash it off I came into the bathroom armed with a plethora of facewashers, towels and a good playlist on my iPod so I had something to listen to. I added some warm water to my hands and started rubbing it off in circular motions that activated the little exfoliating granules. Then after what felt like 20 seconds I looked in the mirror and the mask was all gone. In all honesty it was probably one of the easiest masks to remove.. maybe ever? If the people that wrote these reviews thought that the GlamGlow mask was hard to remove then they have never tried the charcoal one from Origins; now that’s a mask that takes 40 minutes and 30 stained towels to remove. I was actually pretty gob smacked at how easy it was to wash off with gently with warm water as most of the reviews on Sephora had people complaining about it not coming off properly.

Now my skin isn’t sensitive in full context of the word, but it still is in some ways. So basically it isn’t sensitive to the point where I can’t use makeup and can only use goats milk soap, but it is a bit grouchy with certain products I can and can’t use.  The GlamGlow mask was not one of these products. It left my skin feeling incredibly clean, soft and calm which was the exact opposite of how I thought my face would react. I actually was surprised at how much I liked this mask. Maybe it was because my expectations were extremely low but it left my skin feeling pretty darn great.

Now would I repurchase? Yes. But I wouldn’t spend money on the full size version. With jar packaging the key ingredients deteriorate so much quickly than if it was packaged in a tube or pump. Also because this is a mud mask it will dry out a lot quicker thanks to it’s packaging. This is also a mask I would use once a week or fortnight MAX, so I would repurchase but I would keep buying the little travel sized jars. After one application I also have enough product left in the jar to last me at least a month, so you don’t need that much for the product to work.

I would recommend you give this mask a go as it is pretty fun and if anything it has taught me not to believe every single review you read; because your skin is a special little snowflake hipster who is different from everyone else and you could have a completely different experience to someone else. If a product has crazy bad reviews I would always aim to try and find a sample or travel size and to always patch test before use.