Use Your Mud or Clay Mask Properly

Drinking coffee has a multitude of benefits such as keeping dementia away, sharpening your cognitive skills, and pushing premature aging at bay; however, we all know that too much even of a good thing is bad.

This same principle applies with your mud or clay skincare. It packs a lot of benefits but only if used appropriately, and trust me, I recently learned that I’ve been using it wrong, because we have been taught misguidedly.

I’ve had a talk with my friend about how the Aztec mud mask worked wonders for her skin (Hi Pau!) so I used it again and bought other mud masks for my different skin concerns from Rraw Ph. So I’ve had three other varieties: French Blueberry Clayey, the Moroccan Mint Clayey and the Black Tea Clayey. I will have another post for each of these products.

However, as beneficial as mud or clay masks sound, they can be really harmful for your skin if used and applied the wrong way.

Basically, mud masks work by imbuing your skin with essential nutrients that it craves, and then removing or detoxifying the ugly things like excess oil, dirt and even dead skin cells that can block your skin and make it look uneven, ragged and unsightly.

The three phases of mud-mask application are:

  1. The damp phase is the part when your skin absorbs the minerals and the nutrients it needs.
  2. The semi-dry phase is when you feel a warm feeling on your skin or that tingle because the mask stimulates your capillaries, thereby increasing blood flow as the mask cools and contracts.
  3. The dry phase starts when you feel the mask or your skin tightening, this is usually the part when the mask starts absorbing moisture from the skin. I repeat. That is not good.

    So basically you want the first two stages and not the last one.

Most of the instructions or information available on the internet tells you to let the mud mask dry out on your face, but contrary to what dermatologists prescribe, you have to take it out before that third (drying) point to get the wholesome benefits of mud or clay masks, else you end up with irritated and dry skin, and what do we do when we have dry skin? We lather up on excess moisturizer and heavy creams to overcompensate, which only serves to suffocate your already damaged skin.

So, when using mud or clay masks, try the touch test to see and feel if the mask is starting to dry but feels kind of icky– that’s the best time to rinse it off.

For those with oily skin, mud masks can be used twice or thrice each week (so use it every other day). For those with dry or sensitive skin, it’s apt to just use it once to avoid doing unnecessary damage to your skin.

I hope you learned a lot.

Until you read from me again.
Love lots!

Julian Dee.

Author: juliandee