While your usual skincare routine may keep your skin maintained in good condition, all skin types can benefit from a once-a-week mask. Facial masks deep cleanse your skin more effectively than just daily cleansing, helping to remove impurities from deep within pores. They are particularly beneficial for oily and problem skins as they help to banish and prevent blackheads, spots and outbreaks of acne. However, beauty masks can also perform tasks that benefit other skin types from soothing irritated and inflamed skin, hydrating and nourishing dry and dehydrated skin, and rejuvenating mature skin.
Mud and Masks - The Basics
Mud, or rather clay, is the base of most beauty masks. Clay masks come in a variety of textures and colours and have been renowned since ancient times for deep cleansing and removing impurities from the skin. Different types of mud should be selected for different skin types:
Oily and Problems Skins: choose fuller's earth, green and white kaolin clays
Combination, Dry, Dehydrated and Mature Skins: choose green and white kaolin clays
Sensitive Skin: choose pink kaolin clay.
Fuller's earth and kaolin clays can be bought in health food stores or ordered from aromatherapy suppliers, and are quite inexpensive. To make a basic mud mask blend two teaspoons of your clay with two and a half teaspoons of vegetable oil (such as sweet almond oil) or three teaspoons of honey. Blend well to make a paste you can apply to your skin.
Other Bases for Your Masks
Masks don't have to be mud based, you can also use honey, yoghurt, cream, mashed fruit, oatmeal, whipped egg whites or mashed avocado as your base.
Honey Masks: exfoliating, hydrating and nourishing, with mild antibacterial action
Yoghurt and Cream Masks: exfoliating and nourishing; yoghurt has a natural antibacterial action and cream is moisturising
Mashed Fruit: such as strawberries, have fruit acids that exfoliate and brighten skin, while also delivering anti-aging antioxidant action to your skin's surface
Oatmeal: deep cleanse while soothing irritated, inflamed or sensitive skin; sufferers of excema can benefit from a weekly oatmeal mask
Whipped Egg Whites: excellent for tightening pores and lifting sagging skin; simply whisk two egg whites and leave on your face for 10 minutes for an instant lift
Mashed Avocado: a highly nourishing mask rich in skin-friendly vitamins A and B and protein.
Once you have selected the base for your mask you can add two to three drops of essential oils to suit your skin type and blend in.
Priming Your Skin for a Mask
To make the most of your facial mask make sure your skin has been thoroughly cleansed and also exfoliate. Removing debris such as dirt and dead skin cells from your skin's surface will maximise the effectiveness of your beauty mask, allowing it to sink down into pores and deep clean. Some beauticians advise that you also gently steam your face to open pores before applying a mask, allowing the mask's active ingredients to readily enter skin. Steaming depends on your skin type - if you have mature or sensitive skin you may be prone to broken capillaries that will be aggravated by steaming, while sufferers of severe acne may find skin becomes more inflamed. Most masks will work just as well without steaming, so if in doubt ask a beautician to assess your skin's condition before steaming.
Aromatherapy Masks For Your Skin Type
The recipes below are examples of how you can select ingredients for your skin type and mix up an aromatherapy-style spa treatment for your face at home.
Dry or Dehydrated Skins: use half a mashed avocado as your base and add two drops patchouli and one drop sandalwood
Mature Skin: use thick double cream as your base and add three drops of vitamin A-rich carrot-seed oil
Sensitive Skin: use ground oatmeal as your base and add two drops neroli oil
Oily or Problem Skins: use green kaolin clay as your base and add two drops cedarwood oil and one drop juniper oil.
Once you start to experiment mixing with different bases and essential oils to suit your skin's needs you'll start to notice a huge improvement in the condition of your skin. One word of caution, however. When you first start to use facial masks you may notice that they will draw out deep impurities to the skin's surface. This will lessen the more regularly you use a mask (once a week).
Further reading:
Patricia Davis, Aromatherapy, an A-Z, 2004, London, Random House.
Salvatore Battaglia, The Complete Guide to Aromatherapy, 2003, Australia, The International Centre of Holistic Aromatherapy.
Janetta Bensouilah and Philippa Buck, Aromadermatology. Aromatherapy in the treatment and care of common skin conditions, 2006, Oxford, Radcliffe Publishing.
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