Mario Badescu Whitening Mask Review

Having suffered with years of breakouts and consequently a combination of dry skin and touching my face too much has left me with some scarring and an uneven skin tone. I had always used exfoliators and products containing salicylic acid to help reduce this which had worked fine, although of course this is not a quick solution and requires a lot of patients.

Having watched YouTube videos about reducing acne scarring I came across the Mario Badescu whitening mask, and then after a lot of thought I took the plunge and purchased it for around £20 on beautybay.

The product claims;

Benefits;

This hydrating mask will help brighten uneven skin tones and gently minimise the look of old acne scars and discolouration from the sun. Skin lightening, natural ingredients like Kojic Acid, Licorice and Mulberry make this mask gentle for all skin types. Contains no Alpha Hydroxy Acids making it safe and gentle for acne erupted or very sensitive skin.

The Good You are meant to use it 2-3 times a week for around 15 minutes. Having read around on forums though I started leaving the product on for as long as I could even overnight (just applying to the areas with the worst scarring and pigmentation). The mask has a clay like consistency and I actually liked the smell, it does smell more artificial than natural to me though. As you leave it on your face it hardens and of course once you start moving your face, it cracks and you leave residues of white powder falling off everywhere. I would remove with a wet muslin cloth, pressing it down to my face to dampen the mask before gently wiping away. My logic was that this would act as an exfoliation step too. My face always looked so bright after use and I could see that the mask was helping to reduce the pigmentation. My skin also felt smooth and did not feel dry. I would them just place over my usual moisturiser. The Bad When I first brought the mask I used it every day, or every other day, and only later reduced the use to 2-3 times a week. For the size you do get a lot of applications from the 2oz tub. However, my big problem with the mask is that with at least 2-3 applications worth left it has dried up and become useless. I will try to add warm water and see if this will soften it enough for me to use but otherwise I haven’t managed to get full use out of what is an expensive face mask. I think this problem is just an issue of packaging, had it been in a tube this might not be an issue. I had notice the drying of the product around the edges earlier on so I should have had the foresight to know it was going to happen to all of it eventually and made an effort to use it sooner. Aside from that I do like the mask and would potentially repurchase. In the mean time though I am testing some other whiteners and products with claims to reduce the look of scars. Please let me know your experiences and thank you for reading.