Masks

Once or twice a week suits most people and most masks.

Hydrating and soothing masks are gentle enough for more often than that, and a sheet mask every day would do no harm beyond the cost. Clay and exfoliating masks are the ones to hold back on, because overdoing those is how people end up with a stripped, tight, reactive face.

A mask is a top up, not the thing doing the heavy lifting. Your daily routine matters far more.

Match it to what your skin needs that day rather than buying one for life.

• Dehydrated or dull: Skin Formulas Hydra Sheet Mask or Biodance Bio-Collagen Real Deep Mask
• Oily, congested or blackheads: SkinCeuticals Clarifying Clay Masque, Image Skincare Clear Cell Clarifying Salicylic Masque or Medicube Zero Pore Blackhead Mud Mask
• Rough texture or uneven tone: Image Skincare Ageless Total Resurfacing Masque or Obagi Professional-C Microdermabrasion Polish + Mask
• Tired and in need of a lift before an event: Medicube Kojic Acid Turmeric Brightening Gel Mask

Most people get more out of owning one hydrating mask and one clay mask than a drawer full of single sachets.

A sheet soaked in serum that you lay over your face for ten to twenty minutes. The sheet stops the serum evaporating, so your skin stays in contact with it the whole time.

They are best for hydration and for calming skin down, which is why they suit the night before an event or after a flight. They are not doing anything a good serum could not do over time, they just do it all at once.

Take it off after twenty minutes. Leaving it on until it dries out pulls moisture back out of your skin. Press the leftover serum in rather than rinsing, then carry on with moisturiser.

After cleansing, before your serums and moisturiser.

Rinse-off masks come off with warm water, then you carry on as normal. Sheet masks come off and you press in what is left. Either way the mask is preparing the skin, not finishing it, so always follow with moisturiser.

Overnight masks are the exception. Those go on last.

A thicker treatment you apply as the final step at night and sleep in, then rinse off in the morning. It seals everything underneath it and keeps skin from drying out overnight.

Medicube Collagen Night Wrapping Mask and Image Skincare Vital C Hydrating Overnight Masque are both used this way. Image Skincare AGELESS+ Retinol Overnight Masque is a stronger one, so treat it as a retinol night rather than a hydration night.

Once or twice a week is plenty, and on the nights you use one you can skip your usual moisturiser.

Yes, but not on the same night as an exfoliating mask. Two strong things at once is how skin gets sore.

Keep clay and resurfacing masks for the nights you are not using your retinol. A hydrating or soothing mask is a different matter and is actually a good idea on retinol nights, because it takes the edge off the dryness.

If your skin is already stinging or flaking, pause both and let it settle first.