If you had told me three weeks ago that I would be standing in my dorm on a Saturday night with literal egg on my face, I would’ve laughed you off. Me? Making beauty masks from food? Please. DIY face masks reminded me too much of those cringe-worthy seventh grade slumber parties, where I once found myself rubbing egg yolk and avocado into my skin at two in the morning while a classmate whined, “Let me tweeze your eyebrows, Sydney. Pleaseee, just a little bit?”
So, when I graduated middle school, I decided that I graduated to the big girl beauty products as well. Over the years I’ve sampled everything from sparkling pear masks, to seaweed moisturizers, to the internet- renowned Dead Sea Mud Mask. Everything was going well, my skin was clear, and the egg-yolk treatments were a thing of the past.
Then I checked my wallet.
My holiday money was running out, my morning SPA coffees were coming back to bite me in the butt, and I running out of mud mask. What was a girl to do?
It was time to get cracking. Back to middle school I went.
- Lemon Juice, Egg White, Clay
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It was Friday night. After coming home from my twice monthly Walmart run (a professor once told me you know you live in Waterville, Maine when you go to Walmart for fun), I carefully measured out the ingredients as instructed by HelloGlow! beauty blog and mixed them up. I had no idea where to find clay though, so I used some of the mud mask I still had left. It still seemed too watery, so I added four more teaspoons of the mud mask to get it to the pasty consistency required. Each extra teaspoon hurt my soul, but in the name of science and my bank account, it had to be done. Then, I slopped it on and waited.
Besides making me look like the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the mask wasn’t too bad. After about 15 minutes, it became dry and crackly, making my skin tighten up like a used kitchen sponge. I rinsed, patted dry and lathered on the lotion before observing the results.
This particular mask was meant to squeeze out all the gunk from my pores, according to HelloGlow! My T-Zone actually looked pretty clear, especially the little areas on my cheeks. To be fair, I’m not sure if this was in result of the DIY face mask or the fact that part of it was a store bought face mask, but overall I was satisfied.
Final rating: 7/10
- Egg White, Honey, Flour
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Saturday night. I put on some Fleetwood Mac as I whisked my ingredients, careful not to knock over the full bag of flour I’d bought specifically for this experiment. I thought it would be nice to have some ingredients I could reuse, but it turns out there aren’t a lot of microwave-friendly meals that need flour, so I ended up donating the bag to Co-Op. Bummer. I kept dumping in more flour, because that perfect pasty consistency was always just out of reach. At one point I even asked my roommate for her opinion, but she gave me a strange look and went back to watching Westworld.
When I finally got the viscosity up to scratch, I lathered it on, making sure to gently rub it in circles like the blog recommended. The flour was supposed to exfoliate my pores, but rubbing it in just felt like smearing cake mix onto my face, and pretty soon I was scraping batter out from under my fingernails.
I was not prepared to deal with the removal of this mask. After twenty-minutes the mix was still wet, but I turned on the faucet to wash it off anyway. I soon learned, however, that honey doesn’t wash off like plain egg white. Oh no. It clings to every little baby hair available. It cements into your eyebrows. It clogs your nostrils. Soon you find yourself furiously clawing at the sides of your face and there’s honey everywhere and your neighbor is yelling at you to turn off the sink and sirens are wailing and-
1/10. Do not engage unless you are prepared for war.
- Yogurt, Honey
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Sunday, post hangover. I chose a cooling moisturizer for my final round, mixing together a yogurt and honey combination that was supposed to be tomorrow’s breakfast. I smoothed it all over my face and sat down to do my homework, eagerly anticipating the “radiant, matte glow” as promised by HelloGlow!
Everything was swell until five minutes in, when splat! a glob dripped off my jawline and onto my critical theory textbook. And then it began to itch. Like, really itch. At first I tried to suavely poke at the discomfort with a fork to avoid ruining the whole mask, but eventually it became unbearable and I found myself once again clawing at my face, covered in yogurt.
I don’t know if I’m allergic to honey, yogurt, both, or if the mask just clogged my pores, but I woke up the next morning with a bad breakout. Or, maybe, I used too many DIY face masks in too short of a time. Whatever the case, I decided to end my adventures there to avoid any further harm and humiliation.
The mask did moisturize, but it also felt too heavy for my pores. 5/10. Maybe I would try it again, but I would definitely skip the honey.
Conclusion
In my search for the perfect DIY face masks, I encountered hundreds of blogs, websites, and Pinterests promising me the best the internet has to offer. What I learned is that it isn’t a perfect science. Some are going to work for you, some aren’t. But once you find that perfect mask for you, it’s a handy way to save some cash and look fabulous while doing it. When you’re a broke college student scraping together pennies for a latte, the DIY world offers the freedom of effective skin care with limited funds