Product Review: LUSH Fresh Face Masks — Cup O' Coffee, Don't Look At Me, Rosy Cheeks

Fresh season, fresh face forward: LUSH has added three new formulations to their bestselling Fresh Face Masks lineup—Cup O' Coffee, Don't Look At Me, and Rosy Cheeks. Ready for a closer look? More details after the jump!

For those who are new to Fresh Face Masks like I am, here's the scoop: They're made from mostly natural ingredients with no synthetic preservatives in small batches and only available in stores. You can leave the mask on your skin for 5-10 minutes before rinsing, which is quicker to use than the average mask; that and the fact that they're perishable have made me more diligent about masking (always a plus!). Most of them require refrigeration and have a shelf life of approximately 3 weeks, so unless you're planning to share or use a mask every other evening, I suggest you get the smallest size possible to minimize wasted product.

First up, we have Cup O' Coffee which, unlike its siblings, doesn't have to be refrigerated and can be used on the face or body. This mask/scrub is meant to energize and exfoliate tired skin with its potent combination of ground coffee and roast cocoa extract, while kaolin clay deep-cleans pores of impurities. I love the delicious aroma of Cup O'Coffee and the texture of it as a scrub (grainy, not too rough, not too runny), but that being said, this was probably my least favourite of the new Fresh Face Masks. The coffee grounds didn't rinse off very cleanly and seemed to get everywhere—all over the sink, on my face, in my towel. It's great as a hand and foot scrub for mani/pedi sessions, but kind of a buzzkill to clean up after in the mornings.

Don't Look At Me's name is a tongue-in-cheek nod to the mask's obnoxious shade of blue and how you might be tempted to hide from the world while using it. (Personally, I love how bright it is.) Lemon juice and kaolin deep-cleanse pores; ground rice exfoliates manually; murumuru butter purportedly moisturizes. I love the deep clean feeling I get from using this mask, but it can also be kind of drying—probably because of the lemon juice and kaolin. I suggest using this mask in a double-cleanse routine, massaging a cleansing oil into skin first to remove makeup and then following up with Don't Look At Me. Bonus points for rinsing away cleanly.

Like Don't Look At Me, Rosy Cheeks can be drying, probably thanks to the high kaolin content in the formula. But it also has calamine and Turkish rose oil to soothe and calm ruddiness, and aroma-wise, it's basically a rose bouquet in a little black jar. Rosy Cheeks is my fave of the three for its divine scent, ability to calm and brighten immediately upon use, smooth texture, and clean-rinsing formula.

So in the end, did I have fun testing the new Fresh Face Masks? You bet. Would I re-purchase them? Maybe not these particular ones. As great as the kaolin content would be for someone with oily or blemish-prone skin, I need something much, much more hydrating than what these masks can do.