Charcoal Peel Tips

As anyone who reads the blog knows, I've only recently started exploring new makeup and new skincare items. Some of them aren't things I've really had contact with before and others only bear a passing resemblance to the products I've used in the past. In a lot of ways, many things are now an experiment.

My first exposure to charcoal peel off masks is probably a lot like everyone else's  . . . I saw a YouTube video where someone screamed as they were pulling one off.  It looked really painful, but at the same time, they were really happy with the results. My first exposure to charcoal as a beauty product was through Sephora. I received a pudding you put on your skin. It isn't a peel though. You wipe it off. I wanted to see what the peels were like.

I bought one and liked it. My experience wasn't as extreme as the videos. It didn't make me scream when I was pulling it off, but I did like the results. Besides pulling things out of pores, charcoal is also good for dealing with skin discoloration. The pudding was helping some with a few spots I have on my face, but I notice that with the peel, I'm seeing faster results. I like the mask, but there are some tricks to it.

Before you begin, make sure your face is clean and remove any hair you don't want messed with. Mine wasn't intense enough to yank hair from my face, but a lot of them are. Be careful around your eyebrows. You should also tend to any physical needs like using the restroom or hydrating yourself before you start putting black goo on your face.

Speaking of black goo, this stuff IS charcoal. Don't do this unless you have unimportant clothing on. Make sure you have wet wipes near you because it's going to get on your hands and anywhere else it spills.

And it is going to drip and spill. This kind of peel, at least the one I got, doesn't have the consistency of the typical face mask. It isn't some thick gel. This is more like oil and it's going to run, drip, and then very quickly dry. With this in mind, it's best to work in quadrants of the face and then join them. In fact, it's best to just do one spot of your face before you do the whole of it. If you are allergic to the product, better to just find that out in one spot.

Once you have it on your face, you may have to apply more. With just a thin layer, it mostly just lays over your pores instead of sinking into them. I had to apply another layer over the first one to get full coverage. It's also a good idea to make sure your edges are thick because when you start to peel it off, thin edges cause you problems. In some cases, they don't want to come up at all.

Finally, when you're finished, make sure you wash any leftover charcoal off your skin and apply a good moisturizer to prevent your skin from drying out. Clean up the area and be sure to follow whatever instructions are on the product about how to store it. You don't want this turning into my super glue that is unusable now because the top layer of it is all dried up.

I'll keep you updated on my experiments with the peel.