Peel-off face masks have been a popular way to moisturize, solve skin issues, and have your body absorb skin ingredients that might be helpful for healthier, healthier-looking skin. All these companies can tell you that they work, but what does dermatology say about it? Medicine is a great source of evidence-based, proven treatments that can solve your health issues. Getting an endorsement from medicine would validate face masks as an effective way to treat your skin problems. Since dermatology is the medical field for skin, it would be interesting to get medical input on the effectiveness of face masks. So what does dermatology say? Unknown. That’s right, as of publishing this article, there is no conclusive scientific evidence that face masks actually work like companies would have you believe. Disappointing, we know. There’s even a lot of debate in the medical community about whether or not they work. Dermatologists in a YouTube video believe that facemasks don’t work, but there are many sources with other dermatologists saying otherwise. So what’s the truth here? Well, we can offer you the little information that we do have:
They definitely moisturize the skin
Peel off face masks definitely moisturize the skin, but not for the reasons you might be thinking. One of the only studies about peel off face masks concluded that these masks moisturize the skin because of the occlusion effect. This is where the mask itself prevents water from escaping the skin and not because of the ingredients that were in the mask. The occlusion effect from the mask could increase water content in the skin up to 50%. The biggest takeaway from this is that the mask’s ingredients aren’t doing anything special to moisturize the skin. The occlusion effect also isn’t a special effect of the mask because it happens with skin that’s covered by something water can’t go through. You could do this with anything over the face with the same effect.
A lot of the ingredients don’t get absorbed
There are a lot of face masks out there with ingredients that claim to absorb into the skin to make it look better. However, our skin is really good at protecting our bodies from the environment, so it would be a problem if things could penetrate the skin as easily as face masks would have you believe. The ingredients are paired with a solvent that helps it get absorbed, but even then, skin doesn’t absorb all ingredients at a rate that would be helpful for your skin. That’s not to say that all ingredients aren’t seeping into the skin to give you some benefits, but it just might not be as helpful as companies would have you believe.
The ingredients might not actually do anything
This is something we see in medicine quite often actually. Patients try home remedies that they heard or read from somewhere, but in reality, the remedy doesn’t actually work. Let’s take urine as an anti-acne remedy for example. Some swear by it, but allow us to be the first to tell you that it’s not effective. But even if it was, please use more sanitary options! Sometimes “knowledge” like this gets out of hand because you have companies or people desperate to sell a product or ideal that suits their needs. The takeaway here is that you should be careful spending a lot of money on face masks that sound fancy, but might not do much. Do a little digging on the main ingredients to help you make your choices. Ingredients like aloe vera have some anti-acne properties backed by science, but far-fetched ideas like urine concoctions are likely to be hearsay.
Takeways
Objectively, we can see why some dermatologists say it doesn’t work. “Fun-jectively” it’s a great way to moisturize and maybe get a couple benefits on the off chance that they actually work. Peel-off face masks aren’t hurting anyone as long as you’re not treating it like the ultimate solution for whatever skin issues. Unfortunately, cosmetic face masks haven’t been put under the skepticism of medicine yet, so we can’t give a conclusive answer from a professional medical standpoint. Although, we don’t recommend spending tons of money on them for solutions that haven’t been proven to work. Even if they do work, they aren’t as effective as solutions that estheticians or dermatologists have developed. Comparing the effectiveness between face masks and medically developed solutions would be like comparing a rowboat and a cruise liner. Both of them can get you across an ocean, but you’d rather be on the cruise liner.
References
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ics.12133
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1046/j.0909-752x.2001.10311.x
