Face Mask Your Way To Great Skin With These Beauties

With staying indoors the new norm, practising self care is an excellent way to while away the hours we've suddenly reclaimed. And really, nothing spells self care more than a restorative, skin-beautifying mask - it's beneficial for both body and soul. Whether your skin has suffered another winter, with all its familiar vices (too hot showers and skin-parching heating, to name a few), or you've spent the last few months basking under a deliciously warm but decidedly dehydrating sun, here is our edit of the best skin-plumping, complexion-brightening options the category has to offer...

If your skin is on the drier side, it’s time to bring out the big guns…

Think masks rich in moisturising, nurturing ingredients to restore complexions to hydrated bliss. Peptides are always a good place to start – they’re essentially the building blocks of skin, after all – and Grown Alchemist’s Age-Repair Sleep Masque is full of the beauties.

Cool A-Beauty brand Mere brings us their Recharge & Repair Night Mask, a water-rich product that helps up the skin’s hydration levels (something almost all skins will benefit from). It also offers a host of suitably Australian natural botanicals, such as flame tree extract, as well as a blend of quandong, wattle seed and desert lime.

We consume copious amounts of black tea for its antioxidants (as well as its energy boosting properties), and, happily, the ingredient has the same anti-ageing, rejuvenating effect on skin. Fresh’s Black Tea Firming Overnight Mask is, as the name suggests, rich in the superfood, and offers a cocktail of other skin-brightening antioxidants, thanks to blackberry leaf and lychee seed extracts.

An exquisite botanical and plant oil-rich option comes in the form of Sodahi’s Plant Essence Replenish Mask. It leaves skin plumper, brighter and happier all round – what’s not to love?

Sometimes, you only have the time (or energy) to fit in a speedy spot of TLC…

Which is where an efficient and effective mask can help settle dehydrated skins. The cult favourite Aura Manuka Honey Mask from Antipodes is one lush option – a rich, deeply moisturising treat that also manages to purify congested skins, to leave things looking and feeling balanced. Two jobs done, all in the space of 15 minutes.

Clinique’s Moisture Surge line is magic for dehydrated skins, and their Overnight Mask is a worthy addition to any mask arsenal. For the time poor, the hours spent sleeping are an invaluable (and often untapped) beauty resource – apply this one before bedtime and snooze your way to better skin come morning.

It’s best practice to exfoliate before slathering on a richly hydrating mask, but why not get both jobs done and dusted at the same time? Summer Friday’s R+R Mask sloughs away dead skin, thanks to its wild rose powder, then douses skin with gorgeous botanical oils for a gorgeously glowing complexion. The addition of vitamin C brings an extra dose of brightness and clarity to the skin.

A damaged skin barrier is often to blame when skin is feeling consistently dry and sensitive…

In which case Ultraceutical’s Ultra Replenishing Mask would serve you well. It boasts ceramides and vitamin E, which are wonderfully soothing and restorative, as well as all-round skin hero, hyaluronic acid.

Another delicious overnight option, O Cosmedics’s Hydra Plus Sleep-In Mask, features the brand’s signature anti-ageing V8 peptide complex, plus niacinamide and shea butter for soft, nourished skin.

Finally, Lano’s The Aussie Flyer is a brilliant concept, well executed: a mask designed to combat the very real complexion conundrums faced by us Antipodeans where we often have to travel upwards of 24 hours to get to the other side of the world. The perfect travel companion to help plump up jet-lagged skins.

Story by Tess de Vivie de Régie, photography by Alice Mahran, styling by Kristin Rawson