Have you ever come across a cream that has straight up floored you from the first application? You know, the kind of find that you swear by and recommend to everyone you meet? Well, meet my very own Mr Darcy of night products: the Laneige Water Sleeping Mask. It’s the sole reason my skin made it through late nights and back-to-back parties, emerging fresh and well rested the next morning.
When this sleeping mask first hit the market in 2014, I didn’t believe the hype. When they claimed to sell one every 15 seconds in Asia, I chalked it up to marketing gimmicks. When I watched every product review wax poetic about it, I thought, ‘Hmm, maybe there’s something here’.
A true blue Korean invention from a brand with a pretty impressive product portfolio (La Neige is French for ‘snow’ by the way), this super light jelly-like gel goes over nice and cool on your skin, getting absorbed in the minutes it takes to hit the pillow. The morning after my very first application, I looked at my face in the mirror and wondered which kindred spirit commissioned this good skin day on my face that would otherwise bear testament to the previous night’s sins in the form of dry patches, peek-a-boo fine lines and overall dullness. Infact, my skin looked just like how it was before all those wine refills…but better. I fell in love instantly.
What’s the science behind this magic? The mask is formulated with highly concentrated hydro ionized mineral water, which is what delivers that instant hydration through moisturising minerals including zinc, magnesium and calcium. There’s also a calming Sleepscent™ infused with orange flower, rose, and sandalwood, while apricot and evening primrose extracts brighten and purify fatigued skin. It also boasts of sodium hyaluronate, a deep hydrator and skin soother, and ascorbyl glucoside, which promotes brightening. The special Moisture Wrap™ technology locks in all that good stuff for an 8-hour window, so you wake up looking (if not feeling) like Cinderella with the singing birds. Plus, more good news: all of this does not break you out.
I was so into it, I slathered on a dollop-sized amount of the mask every night, until a friend enlightened me about using it only twice or thrice a week, as on the manual, so as to not reduce its efficacy. Over the next few weeks, I realised a little goes a long way, so my application quantity has now reduced to half, though my usage frequency is pretty much the same, as I schlepped myself from one late night to the next. Like a pre-party hangover detox drink, but for my skin.
One thing it isn’t though, is a moisturiser. Though it might fool you, this is simply a super hydrating sleeping mask that is pretty much washed away when you wash your face, leaving you with happy skin, but not doubling up as a moisturiser (that you still need, every single time).
And here I am, having braved the season of revelry, unscathed. The verdict: this stuff’s tomorrow’s skin-sanity in a jar. Start tonight.
Buy the skincare hero here.
