Review: Etude House Bubble Tea Sleeping Masks

How cute are these? Etude House launched their Bubble Tea Sleeping packs in three different "flavours" meant for different skin types. Black tea for firming, strawberry for moisturizing and green tea for oil control. There's boba capsules that contain the main hydrating ingredients and a little straw/spoon to scoop everything out hygienically.

So, as cute as they are, how did they perform?

Let's start off with the ingredients. Every pack contains glycerin, hyaluronic acid, and the respective extract (strawberry, black tea, or green tea) within the first 10 ingredients. Awesome right? Not so much for sensitive skin. Alcohol is fifth ingredient, above all the ingredients previously mentioned except glycerin. In theory, the alcohol will help the mask to absorb without such a sticky texture, hence it's inclusion. Unfortunately for those of us who need to avoid alcohol in our skincare diet, this can prove irritating at worse, or lacklustre at best.

Boba with a spoonful of gel, and a smooshed boba to release all those hydrating ingredients.

The idea behind these masks is that there is a lightweight gel, and then boba that contains higher concentrations of active ingredients (in this case, the tea and strawberry extracts). You grab a bit of the gel and a boba capsule or two, break the boba, then apply to it your skin. I find there's a lot more gel than boba whenever I try to use the attached straw/spoon to grab the boba. Since it's kind of unhygienic to put the extra gel back, I just use it all on my face. The results with lots of gel and two boba? Nada, unless you count a sticky face for a few hours. The results with less gel and two boba (I used the extra gel on my legs)? Nada, although everything absorbed a lot better. In the morning, there was a coating of something on my face that rinsed off easily with warm water. But I didn't feel more moisturized.

The black tea pack felt slightly more moisturizing than either the strawberry or green tea, but not by much. The green tea felt the most lightweight, and least moisturizing of the three.

My skin doesn't agree with alcohol – it'll start off ok, but I slowly get dryer and dryer, until irritated spots show up. Despite that, I used each of these for a week to see how my skin fared. I didn't get any irritation, and surprisingly I didn't get any dryness over the month either. On the other hand, I was not nearly as moisturized and glowy the next day from these sleeping packs compared to others I've tried.

Would I recommend these? Not if you have dry or sensitive skin. On the other hand, if you get results from sheet masks with a high alcohol content or creams and packs containing a lot of alcohol, you might still enjoy these.