When I was younger, I remember going through my sisters beauty treatments she had stashed in our bathroom cabinets. It was fun for me to try different things and see what they would do for my skin. The problem, and I didn’t know this at the time, was that she had (still has) oily skin and I have dry skin. So I would apply these masks and my skin would feel super tight and dry. I thought that was a good thing. It wasn’t.
Now I know that we never want our skin to feel like that even if you have oily skin. Anytime you are taking something out, you should always be replacing it so that your skin is hydrated. That is what I think, at least. Stripping your skin of their natural oils and water is not healthy.
I first read about the Kitty Litter Mask a year or two ago and I dismissed it. Definitely not something I would want to do and I wouldn’t recommend it to my clients so I didn’t bother reading more about it. Then, I had a client send me a link to it because she thought it was funny. It is funny and ridiculous but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be good for your skin, right?
I watched the YouTube video explaining how to do it and a couple of days later I purchased some unscented kitty litter and tried the mask for myself. Clay masks are generally not good because they will strip everything from your skin. They will actually tell you that! These masks pull out all the impurities, toxins and oil. Kitty litter contains sodium bentonite clay so it is basically the same as those clay masks you been purchasing. Yes? No, probably not.
My Thoughts After Using the Mask
1. I did not like it. At all. My skin felt tight, like the blogger said it would, and then I felt a little tingling. As I said, I have dry skin so this was extremely tight on my skin and the tingling didn’t feel right.
2. Even though she said just to use the water but it would be okay if some of the “rocks” got on your face, it wasn’t okay. My skin was definitely being exfoliated and not by anything I would want anyone to use. They can tear at your skin and/or breakouts and cause bigger problems.
3. My skin felt softer after I removed the mask but let me tell you, my skin was craving my serums and grapeseed oil. It was so dry and tight! Skin should never feel like that.
4. It is now over an hour since I removed the mask and even though my skin has 3 hydrating serums on and my grape seed oil, it still feels tight. That feeling didn’t come back until about 30 minutes ago. My skin is still suffering from it.
There is absolutely NO benefits to this mask. It’s actually a risk to the health of your skin to use it. I’m all for DIY facials but not all of them are good for you or your skin type.
Side Note-
One of the most frustrating things about these DIY bloggers is that they don’t have all the information and so everyone thinks they can do these type of masks. IF, and that is only hypothetical, I were to recommend this, it would be for oily skin clients and certainly not for dry skin. That wasn’t mentioned but it is really important.
*update- My skin took about 1 week to recover from this mask. That may not be true for everyone but for this girl, who has dry skin, it changed things for a bit.
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