COSMETICS AND BATHROOM PRODUCTS:F ACE MASKS

F ACE MASKS

The earliest known recordings of skin-treating facial mask use date back to the Egyptians, and their facial mask formulas were known to be pastes including honey, milk, and vegetable flours. Romans used masks formulated with ass’s milk, wet bread dough, or crude wool grease combined with honey, eggs, barley flour, crushed beans, narcissus bulbs, orris root, powdered horns of cows, and seabird excrement. Throughout medieval times, Asian women used facial masks made of pearl powder, white jade, ginseng, lotus seed powder, and camphor. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, European women mixed yeast with water or used yogurt alone as a cosmetic facial mask. By the mid 1960s, the back-to- nature movement led to the use of ingredients such as eggs, honey, milk, cream, strawberries, cucumbers, olive oil, oatmeal, and mayonnaise in “homemade” mask recipes. At the start of the twenty-first century, modern commercially developed facial masks include natural product ingredients, along with chemically advanced active ingredients, to support the competitive consumer-driven cosmetic market.

Facial masks are developed to target consumers with different skin types, classified as dry, normal, or oily. Specialty products targeting con- sumers with special skin needs include those with combination, acne- prone, sensitive/allergy-prone, stressed, or aged skin. Depending on the active ingredients and the chemical base formula, facial masks are characterized by functionality and include clay masks, peel-off masks, cream (hydrating) masks, and exfoliating masks.

Clay masks are applied as an even film over clean skin and draw (via capillary action) into them materials that are absorbable or adsorbable, thereby acting as a mild abrasive and exfoliant. Clay masks, generally tar- geted for normal, oily, or acne-prone skin types, are based on fine particle- sized or micronized solids such as adsorptive clays, including bentonite, hectorite, magnesium aluminum silicate, kaolin, green, red, and pink clays, magnesium carbonate or oxide, zinc oxide, lake- or river-based silts, tita- nium dioxide, or colloidal oatmeal. Clays in general are derived from silico- aluminum sedimentary rocks, and their coloration is dependent on the types of trace metals present. Other ingredients included in clay mask formula- tions include water, opacifying agents (e.g., titanium dioxide, zinc oxide), thickeners (e.g., methylcellulose, ethylcellulose, carboxymethylcellulose, polyvinyl pyrrolidine [PVP] and PVP/PVA [polyvinyl alcohol] resins, xanthan gum, carbomers, polyacrylates, sodium alginate, acacia), emol- lients (e.g., glycerin, propylene glycol, allantoin, mineral oil), emulsifiers (e.g., disodium cocamido monoisopropylamid [MIPA]-sulfosuccinate, iso- propyl palmitate, ceteareth-5, polysorbate 60, cetyl alcohol), humectants (e.g., sorbitol), alcohol (e.g., SD alcohol 40, phenoxyethanol), preserva- tives (e.g., diazolindinyl urea, methylparaben, propylparaben, disodium EDTA), and fragrance.

Peel-off masks are applied in a uniform layer on the skin and upon drying and removal produce a sensation of skin tightness and cleansing action. Peel-off masks are marketed to consumers with normal, oily, combination, and acne-prone skin types. These masks are believed to perform the functions of skin exfoliation, hydration, and purification. They are based on plasticized polyvinyl alcohol. Hydrophilic emollients (e.g., ethoxylated fatty acid or alcohol derivatives, dimethicone copolyol) and humectants (e.g., glycerin, propylene glycol, sorbitol) are added to prevent moisture loss and cracking of polyvinyl alcohol film. Solvents (e.g., ethyl alcohol, SD alcohol 40), preservatives (e.g., urea, parabens), and fragrance are also often added to ensure product consistency, purity, and esthetic consumer appeal.

Cream masks are applied to clean skin, whereby the skin absorbs the cream emollients from the mask and leads to a feeling of soft and moist skin after mask removal. They are marketed to consumers with dry, tight, rough, aged, or environmentally stressed skin types. The formulations consist of heavy-textured emulsions based on water-in-oil or high-oil- content oil-in-water bases. While emollients (e.g., PPG 30 cetyl ether, glyceryl stearate, PEG 100 stearate) serve as the primary ingredients, ad- ditives including emulsifiers and humectants (e.g., cetearyl alcohol, myri- styl myristate, mineral oil, petroleum, propylene glycol, stearic acid, sorbitol) are used to provide skin moisturization, softening, lubrication, and pro- tection. Thickeners (e.g., carbomer, honey), coloring agents (e.g., titanium dioxide, mica, iron oxides, caramel), preservatives (e.g., urea, parabens), and fragrance are also commonly included in these formulations.

Exfoliating masks are formulated to allow for the physical and/or chemical removal of nonliving cells from the upper epidermal layer of the skin that are shed through a natural process. Continuous and evenly dis- tributed skin exfoliation may assist in preventing dry skin and acne for- mation. Acting on the basis of friction, physical (mechanical) exfoliating masks usually consist of polyethylene grains, wax beads, ground apricot or walnut shells, cornmeal, sodium chloride crystals, or encapsulates. Chem- ical exfoliating masks penetrate the upper epidermal skin layer and loosen bonds that hold dead shedding cells to the skin surface, thereby helping to refine skin texture and improve the appearance of wrinkled, age-marked, and UV-damaged skin. Active ingredients included in these formulations include enzymes and ex- and -hydroxy acids, often extracted from milk,

fruit, sugarcane, willow bark, wintergreen leaf, or sweet birch bark sources. Other additives included in these formulations are water, emollients (e.g., mineral oil, lanolin, glycerin, butylene glycol, petroleum, wax, dimethi- cone, shea butter), humectants (e.g., sorbitol), emulsifiers (e.g., stearic acid, glyceryl stearate, ceteareth-20, cetyl alcohol), surfactants (e.g., sodium lauryl sulfate), clays (e.g., magnesium aluminum silicate, talc, kaolin), thickeners (e.g., carbomers, algae), antioxidants and preservatives (e.g., glycolic acid, citric acid, lactic acid, parabens), and fragrances.

Special additives frequently included in all facial mask formulations are different types of fruit and herbal extracts and oils (e.g., avocado, grape, orange, lemon, tangerine, lime, grapefruit, cucumber, macadamia nut, green tea, oat, rice bran, matricaria, primrose, jojoba, Aloe vera, witch hazel, chamomile, peppermint, sage, horsetail, comfrey, lavender, rose- mary, geranium, sunflower, rose hip seed, safflower, cornflower, dandelion, fennel, milk thistle, clove, Saint John’s wort, ginseng, sea minerals), along with vitamins (e.g., panthenol, tocopheryl acetate, ascorbic acid, retinyl palmitate, cholecalciferol) that are used to target specific skin conditions or problems.