Getting Rid of Things That Dull My Shine with 2 New Kiehl’s Masques!

TGIF!!  How was your week?  I had a helluva hectic week at work and wasn’t planning to publish this post today, but I managed to free up a couple of hours and cut back on some much-needed sleep to pen down my thoughts on a couple of new masks from Kiehl’s.  I adore Kiehl’s fuss-free, no-nonsense approach towards skincare; and have been enjoying the Kiehl’s Tumeric & Cranberry Seed Energizing Radiance Masque and Cilantro & Orange Extract Pollutant Defending Masque for the past couple of weeks since I received them, so this will hopefully be in time to get you into the groove for their big 1 February launch!

I’m an admirer of the Kiehl’s philosophy, and they have an extensive range of products to suit just about every skin needs.  Not everything that I’ve encountered has worked well for me, and in particular, their highly-raved Rare Earth Pore-Cleansing Masque left my sensitive skin irritated and wrecked on the 3 occasions that I’ve tried it.  So, it was with some trepidation that I put my poor skin to the test yet again with their latest pair of masks.  The results were surprisingly good, which is why I’m eager to share them with you.

Kiehl’s Tumeric & Cranberry Seed Energizing Radiance Masque is a clay mask that claims to to recharge your skin’s youthful glow and brighten dull, fatigued skin.  Kaolin clay is the key ingredient here, and it draws oil and trapped dirt out from the skin.  My skin doesn’t always take well to clay masks as they can be too stripping sometimes, but this latest Kiehl’s masque also contains some moisturising ingredients to prevent the skin from drying out.  The featured ingredient Turmeric is an anti-oxidant as well as anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory.

To use, apply a thin layer over the entire face avoiding the eye area, and allow 5-10 minutes for the mask to dry.  Thereafter, wet the dried mask on the face and gently massage in circular motions.  The Cranberry Seeds in the mask serve as physical exfoliants, and are surprisingly smooth on the skin.  Finally rinse the mask off completely with water.  My skin feels very well cleansed, brighter and smoother after every use!

Kiehl’s Cilantro and Orange Extract Pollutant Defending Masque is the brand’s interpretation of the currently popular trend of sleeping masks.  It claims to replenish essential nutrients to the skin so that lines are minimized, rough texture is smoothed and dullness is diminished.  This is a cream mask that contains a high level of moisturising ingredients such as Shea Butter, Apricot Kernel Oil, Olive Fruit Oil, and Squalane to soothe skin irritations and form a barrier to prevent water loss thereby giving skin that plumped look.  Cilantro contains anti-oxidants, is anti-inflammatory, and soothes and cools the skin.  Orange Extract not only carries Vitamin C to brighten, but also Vitamin E to prevent lines and wrinkles.

This Cilantro & Orange Extract Masque has a dense cream texture that leaves a slight cooling sensation when applied that feels rather soothing on stressed skin.  You may choose to apply a thicker layer, leave on for 10-20 minutes then tissue off excess and go to bed right away.  However, I found it leaves my skin feeling sticky, so I still prefer to rinse it off and follow up with my routine night time skin care.  I did leave it on overnight once, and woke up to slightly plumper skin (although that effect is pretty much to be expected with just about any respectable night cream) though did not notice anything more spectacular than that.

As far as skincare goes, masks like these are the quickest and easiest to review as one would expect (and very often observe) instant results.  I am very pleased with the Tumeric and Cranberry Seed Masque; but would have preferred to give the Cilantro & Orange Extract Masque a few more tries before formalising my thoughts as the “Pollutant Defending” tagline baffles me.

And if you asked me, why the rush?  The simple and most straight forward answer would be that this post is/was meant to be part of a big PR push towards their launch.  And therein lies my conundrum.  In the entire universe of priorities, life – family – rest rank tops.  Next comes work and then of course ensuring my blog readers are kept properly up to date and well informed on the latest happenings in the beauty-verse.  Working with PRs is part of the process of maintaining a well-run blog, but it is very low down in my list of priorities.  I am very blessed to be able to work with some amazing PRs, and I really enjoy being close to the brands that I love.  And more often than not, I am more than happy to go out on a limb for free to support those brands and people that are dear to me.  So, in all honesty, whether I was chased for this review or not, it would have surfaced sooner or later.  But I really hate turning out half-assed reviews, and more importantly, I really hate pushy people.  Pushy people who try to wriggle their way in by asking seemingly ubiquitous small “favors”, and then once they get a toe-hold position, push for much more… these I despise.  If I were kind, I’d write it off as sheer inaptitude, this pervading Singaporean disease of “blur”.  But if I were to be pressured further into doing something because “there are other bloggers out there…”, then bitch takes over.  Sure, there are plenty of young bloggers out there without the family or work commitment, and who only blog once a month, who will be more than eager to snap up an opportunity to work with an established brand PR.  If we all rank the same, then please go ahead and let those bloggers have the chance.  There is far too much going on in my life to waste a moment on PRs who don’t value the relationship and the personal sacrifices/efforts that I put into each of my blog posts.  Let life take over!

_{This post featured products that were kindly provided for my consideration.  No monetary consideration was provided nor accepted for this blog post.  All opinions expressed here are my own honest, unbiased views.}