My quest for clean, tight pores continues, and I was led down this particular path by an ad on Instagram for some new, powerful, miracle face mask that was guaranteed to clean my skin, tighten my pores, and reverse aging, making my face look like it did when I was ten years old (or some promise to that effect). The product looked propitious so I clicked on the “learn more” link and promptly hit the back button when I saw the price. I don’t recall the ad or the product or even the price (I may have fainted from sticker shock) but I went into the comments to bitch about how expensive it is, because I’m a mean ol’ hag like that, where I saw one of the commentators mentioned using “Indian Clay” instead. She raved at how well it works and how cheap it is so I sprinted to Amazon to see what the heck she was talking about.
Lo and behold:
I continued to live with enlarged and dirty pores until this little baby arrived. The container is actually bigger than I thought it was be (about grapefruit size-ish) and heavier than I imagined.
HELLLOOOOOOO health and beauty! Come to mama!
Nobody mentioned I’d be feeling my face pulsate. I was both frightened and intrigued. This stuff is a powder, and as one can see by the instructions here, I’m supposed to mix the powder with “raw apple cider vinegar”. Well dang, I don’t have “raw” apple cider vinegar (as opposed to cooked, I guess?), I just have regular stuff so I throw caution to the wind and use plain apple cider vinegar instead and hoped it all still turned out all right.
Not knowing what I was doing, I mixed about a 1/4 cup of the powder clay and a 1/4 cup of the vinegar which ended up being too much, so learn from my example and start with small portions and add as needed. Anyway, I added this to that and SURPRISE! the mixture bubbled and fizzed and I got nervous. Had I created some sort of bubbling acid? Had I made one or both ingredients angry? Had I created a volatile concoction of beastly rage that would bring about a deadly doom of suffering and angst?
I’m not dramatic. You’re dramatic.
Deathly doom avoided. The fizzing and bubbling stopped when I stirred the mixture.
The clay is soft and cool, and felt lightweight. There wasn’t much of an odor, which I like, except for a faint whiff of apple cider vinegar. Nothing obnoxious. Several of the reviews on Amazon mentioned that the clay is great in your hair, too, so I divided my hair into sections and added some of the clay to my scalp and hair around the crown.
The too-close before picture:
This picture doesn’t properly show my lovely rosacea 😛
Clay Creature of Salt Lake!
I don’t remember how long I left this stuff on for, though I’m sure it was longer than the 15-20 minutes. I just sat down and watched television, waiting for the mask to feel dry. As with most masks my face did tighten and…AND…it pulsated! It’s an interesting sensation that mostly happened on my nose, chin, and forehead.
Once the mask began crackling off, I got into the shower and washed it all off.
Boogety boogety BOO!
The “after” picture doesn’t really do this justice. I LOVE how my face looked: cleaner, softer, smoother.
A choir of angels sang as heavenly light shown down upon this clean face
So I’d like to give thanks to the commentator who led me down this path and introduced me to Indian Clay. You, random stranger, are AWESOME. 🙂
jennifercaress 