How to Choose the Best Facial Mask for Your Skin Type

As if finding a daily skin care regime isn’t difficult enough, adding face masks to your routine can be a real challenge. With DIYs and hundreds of products all having great marketing around what they think you might need, you may find yourself asking something like, “what’s the best facial mask for me?” and “how to find the right face mask?”

How to Choose the Right Facial Mask

When we help people make their mask decision, we always go back to the basics. We start with questions like, “what is your skin type?” and “what are your skin care goals?” That lets us get moving in the right direction.

Discovering Your Skin Type

It might be really obvious to you what your skin type is, but it might not (especially if you’re experiencing several issues). First, we would suggest to test your skin type! Wash your face and don’t put any products on for a few hours or overnight. After a little while, touch your face. You can also press a tissue over your face and visually see where you’re oily and where you’re not.

A Facial Mask for Oily Skin and Clogged Pores

The goal for oily skin is to remove the excess and balance the oils on the skin. A lot of time (but not always) oily skin comes with clogged pores so we look for ingredients that help to pull out impurities along with drying up that excess oil.

Clay Masks for Oily Skin

A clay mask is awesome for this! There are a lot of different clays you can choose from when you’re looking into choosing the right mask for you and it’s all about doing the research to find what’s right for you. Some of our favorites are rhassoul clay, rose clay, and green (bentonite) clay.

We love them because they’re accessible, effective for pulling out toxic agents from the skin that can cause clogged pores and they’re absorbent of that extra oil while being mineral rich (you know, because they’re straight from the Earth.)

Creating a Mask and Spot Treatment

We use both rose and rhassoul clay in our Purifying Mud Mask to give it extra potency. It’s a powder so you get to create your own consistency for your mask. Play around with the consistency you like, but in general you want it thin enough to mix and spread comfortably, but not so thin that it’s watery. Make it extra thick for an awesome spot treatment.

A Facial Mask for Normal and Combination Skin

If you have combination skin, you already know that it can be difficult to find the perfect products. The clay masks dry out the dryer places but the moisturizing masks can cause impurities on the oily parts. The key here is hydration and balance.

Working with Humectants

While combination skin is the most complicated, it’s easy to make an effective face mask! For this skin type, we suggest working with a mixture of things that are natural humectants and nourish your skin but that don’t have too much of an effect on the oils in your skin.

A raw, local honey mask for normal, combination, or sensitive skin is absolutely top notch. Honey is jam-packed with minerals, provides a calming sensation, and helps increase hydration in the skin. A little bit of turmeric powder or matcha green tea mask with it is next level nourishment.

Adding Ingredients

We like adding the Ayurvedic Facial Scrub to it because it’s a gentle exfoliant, great for bringing the skin into balance, and the horsetail and fenugreek are high in silica and other important minerals that infuse your skin with protective botanicals.

The best part is that this face mask recipe is so easy to make. It’s just one part raw, local honey to one part Ayurvedic Facial Scrub mixed together. Layer it nice and thickly onto the skin and let it sit for 15-30 minutes. As you rinse it away, rub in gentle circles for the exfoliating effect. Finish up with your favorite serum and moisturizer! On top of that, you can also view our line of Balance Skin Care Products for more options for for combination, and normal skin type.

A Facial Mask for Dry Skin

Oh, the dry skin sufferers. Masks are especially helpful for you! If you feel like you’re using the most moisturizing products you can get your hands on but you’re still feeling dry by the end of your day, supplementing with a nice, nourishing mask could be the ticket to smooth skin.

A Mixture of Moisture and Hydration

In the masks above, we suggest adding in powdered herbs but for dry skin, we want to steer clear of adding anything that could be too pulling or drying for the skin because the key to great skin is a mixture of moisture and hydration. That means using a mask that has both rich moisturizers and natural humectants.

Our favorite (and the yummiest) humectant is raw honey and you want to mix that with a moisturizing oil like jojoba or extra virgin coconut oil.

Masking for Dry Skin

Our Coconut Honey Mask is formulated specifically for dry skin, it has a little bit of beeswax in it, just to add to the hydrating factor and leave the skin feeling super smooth! Our favorite way to use this is to work with a nice exfoliant first to get rid of any buildup and then spread your mask on nice and thick.

Leave it for 15-45 minutes and then rinse with warm water (you can also use a warm, wet towel, whatever feels good.) Pat your skin dry and follow up with your hydrating serum and rich moisturizer.

General Mask Guidelines to Follow in Your Beauty Routine

Regardless of your skin type, there is a list of general guidelines to follow when you use a facial mask:

1. Make sure to always wash your face before you use a mask, putting a mask on a dirty face can trap impurities in the skin.
2. Pat your skin dry, don’t rub. The skin will naturally be a bit more sensitive after all that absorbing and/or pulling so you want to make sure to treat it with some extra TLC.
3. Pay attention to how long you leave it on. With clay masks, if they get too dry they can dehydrate your skin leaving it too dry and with moisturizing masks leaving it on for too long can clog pores. We usually suggest at least 15 minutes but never longer than an hour.
4. Follow up with products that work for your skin type. After a mask, the skin tends toward being more absorbent so following up with products that nourish your beautiful skin in the way it deserves.

We hope you’ll be able to find the best face masks that suit your needs and learn a better daily routine for your skin care. You can visit our blog for more about skin types and their concerns, where we give great tips for your daily skin care routine. Or you can start to explore our facial care collection to find the best combination for your skin.