The Experiment: balea skin firming peel-off face mask

About a week ago I started a new skin care regime, a regime that now requires me to wash my face and put serums and stuff on every morning and evening.

Now, I don't have bad skin. It isn't overly oily and it doesn't have any weird bumps or ridges or anything. The worst thing that can be said about my skin really is that it tends to scar easy. But the skin on my face is not used to continuous use of serums or formulas every day, morning and night.

This, plus the stress and constant running around that comes with preparing and going to a fan convention (of which I'm still filing stories on) has actually started to make my cheeks feel dry and rough after a few days.

I have cut down on the use of the products to once a day for now and am now in search of a good facial mosturizer. But until then...


It is now the Monday after the madness, and I decided this would be a good time to try this product that I picked up at Shoppers Drug Mart about two weeks ago for about $2 dollars.

Pictured here, it is a product by Balea and is a skin firming peel-off face mask that is hypoallergenic. It is made with caramel and a "fresh honey scent" that "looks and feels like real honey." And when dry, it peels away to reveal "firmer looking skin that feels soft and supple."

Looking at the ingredients though, caramel and honey aren't even one of the primary ingredients. In fact, alcohol denat., polyvinyl alcohol (a type of wood glue of all things), propylene glycol (oil), vp/dmapa acrylates copolymer and caprylyl glycol all list before honey does. And the honey isn't even natural honey, but hydroxypropyltrimonium honey, something used in a lot of Burt's Bees product.

The ingredients aren't too comforting, but none of them are actually toxic by looks, so I decided to go ahead with it and try it.

After cleansing as instructed (I used Shiseido Benefiance creamy cleansing foam) and pulling back all my hair to keep it from my face, I applied the product to my face.

After a few minutes, I felt a slight stinging sensation, especially on my cheeks.

And before you jump and claim it's an allergy reaction, it wasn't. Just the chemicals.

I don't see that as a particularly good sign about the product as I usually attribute that to chemicals reacting and drying out the skin on my face, in this case, the alcohol, which is the exact opposite of what I want happening to my cheeks especially.

Anyway, it eventually cooled down and began to harden (that would be the wood glue) after about 10 minutes. I waited the maximum 20 minutes before peeling it off, cleaning my face with some tepid water for the final effect.

The good news is that my skin looked softer and clearer after I pulled it off. There was less discolouration and my skin looked light.

But my skin still felt rough and dry. Actually it felt rougher and, upon closer inspection, drier than it did than before I used the product.

Overall, I probably won't buy this product again. It didn't feel very good while applying it and while the fact that it minimized discolouration on my skin, I didn't like how it seemed to dry out my skin.

Overall Score: 2 out of 5 stars

This post was written without sponsorship or encouragement.