And another sheet mask! This time it’s the CADEAVERA Aloe
Fresh Hydrogel Maske!
Another one of those times when my mum went and bought a boatload
of masks and then let’s me pick which ones I want to keep. She likes CADEAVERA
masks because they are cheap, as she knows virtually nothing about the whole
science of skincare. However, they have historically been... not too good. So I
tend to avoid them when I am buying masks for myself. But I kind of thought
this one, of all of them, could be a good one. It’s got 90% aloe juice, so it
should be hydrating enough, no? Well, let’s see if this one is any better than
the previous CADEAVERA masks that I tried!
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Packaging: a plastic sachet, although it is very wide in this
case! The design is simple enough, just slices of aloe among water droplets.
It’s a calming design for sure! Maybe even an omen of how hydrating it will be?
Also, the light green colour of the text and the back makes it even more
calming. Oh, and the hydrogel sheets are light blue as well! It’s all tied
together so nicely! All the information is in the back.
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Ingredients: Aloe barbadensis leaf juice, glycerine,
panthenol/provitamin B5, hyaluronic acid, star anise (Illicium verum) fruit
extract, Baikal skullcap (Scutellaria baicalensis) root extract, true indigo
(Indigofera tinctoria) leaf extract, carrageenan for nourishment. No parabens.
It’s superb that aloe juice is literally the second ingredient; they really
aren’t kidding when they say it’s 90% aloe! The scent is almost non-existent. It
smells vaguely medicinal. It’s truly that smell like what hospitals smell like.
I don’t particularly like it at this point because it reminds me too much of certain traumatic events, but otherwise it’s not a bad scent. The expiration
date is, of course, nowhere to be found. Pffft. Who needs expiration dates
anyways... rubbish. Anyways, the mask should be left on for between 10-20
minutes, which is a bit long if you ask me. 20 minutes is like almost my upper
limit.
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The sheet is made of hydrogel and it comes separated in two
pieces. One piece goes on the top half of the face, while the other one goes on
the lower half. It’s probably separated to make it easier to handle; hydrogel
can be notoriously floppy and difficult to stretch out sometimes. So it’s best
to cut it in two. The hydrogel is pretty much like any other hydrogel: thick,
relatively uncomfortable and suffocating. Sometimes it feels like it is sliding
off, but it’s not; in fact, it sticks to skin remarkably well. I’ve had
problems with hydrogel slipping uncontrollably in the past, so it’s awesome
that this one doesn’t. And I must praise CADEAVERA for not making the mask too huge!
It’s just the right size for my face... which means that it will likely be too
small for regular-sized faces. Oh well!
This hydrogel is easy to stretch across
the face, although do be careful, as it is easily ripped with nails or anything
else. Don’t tug on it! So it’s strong yet still delicate. Peculiar. As for the
amount of serum... yeah, it doesn’t seem to have a lot of serum inside. It
didn’t feel too wet when I unpackaged the mask; indeed, most of the serum
remained in the sachet. And there was a lot of it, only in the sachet, not inside
the mask like it should be.
Serum: it’s watery, which was expected. That makes it
lightweight, but it doesn’t really feel too hydrating for whatever reason.
Also, it’s mega tacky once it dries. That’s annoying!
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I don’t really like the feeling while the serum is
absorbing. It is cooling, that is certain, but it also feels prickly for some
reason. It feels almost minty, which is something my skin tends to hate. It’s
like cryotherapy for the skin, that’s how cold it feels. Now this should, in
theory, feel soothing. I don’t feel that, however. It feels much more like
something’s going horribly wrong with the skin because it actually starts to
feel like it rolled over from cold into burning. Yay. As if my skin wasn’t
already damaged enough from all the antibiotics and stress and everything...
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Results: hmm, there doesn’t seem to be any difference in the
condition of my skin. However, there’s still that horribly minty/burning
feeling, which is even more pronounced now. I hate it. It really feels like my
skin is deeply irritated, which is not what I need right now, goddammit. In
fact, it does seem like it is a tiny bit redder all over. Besides that, it
doesn’t really look too hydrated or refreshed or anything else, really. It just
seems to have done more damage than help. Idk, my skin just doesn’t look happy
with this mask.
It just looks sad because of what it had to endure for 20
minutes. So it doesn’t need to be said that acne look just as bad as before.
Sigh. And it seemed so promising...
Well, at least my skin managed to repair itself by morning
so that it’s not as irritated as the night before. It looks fine in the
morning. Of course, that means that there are no improvements to the condition
of my skin, either. So... kinda useless, no?
All in all, yeah, it’s no better than any of the previous
CADEAVERA masks. It’s mostly what I kinda expected, deep down, even if my naive
mind tried to hype it up. It shouldn’t have, because it’s more-or-less useless.
I like the size of the hydrogel sheets and how well they stuck to skin, but
there just isn’t enough serum in them to make any real difference. Also,
there’s this weird prickly, almost minty feel that’s present while the mask is
drying. It feels horribly uncomfortable. Definitely not cool and refreshing
like such an aloe-rich mask should feel like. It just makes my skin feel like
it’s burning. But it’s not actual allergies or any other kind of irritation, as
my skin isn’t any more red than usual. It just feels atrocious. However much
aloe there is in this mask it sure did not make any sort of difference with my
skin, as it neither looks nor feels hydrated or calm or anything. And there’s
that persistent prickly feeling! I guess I can be thankful it doesn’t make
things worse, but it also certainly doesn’t make them better. At the end if the
day, this is a useless mask, at least for those with oily, acne-prone skin. It
doesn’t do anything. Yet you have to suffer through that prickly, minty
feeling. Great. Ugh, another horrible mask from CADEAVERA... just steer clear from
this one. Nope, no way would I ever recommend this.
Rating: 2/10
Would buy again? NO
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