Beauteque Mask Maven is a monthly K-beauty subscription box dedicated to masks. If you love trying new Korean sheet masks, this subscription is for you!
FYI: This box has had significant shipping delays. However, they seem to be improving lately.
My Subscription Addiction paid for this box. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)
About Beauteque Mask Maven
The Subscription Box: Beauteque Mask Maven
The Cost: $18.95 month-to-month ($15 subscription + $3.95 US shipping). Save with 6- and 12-month subscriptions.
ACTIVE DEAL: Save 10% off of your subscription
CODE: SHEETFACED
The Products: 9 masks of all kinds, straight from Korea and Taiwan. Most are facial sheet masks, but you will sometimes see a hair mask, hand mask, or lip mask, too.
Ships to: The US, Canada, Europe, Australia, and parts of Asia (see international shipping costs during checkout)
Beauteque Mask Maven August 2020 Review
The number of sheet masks out there for sale must be incredibly large. Mask Maven almost never sends repeat items, and I discover something new every month:
1 of 4
The box came with this information card. This month's theme was "Under the Sea."
On to the items:
16 Brand Marine Collagen Shower Mask - Estimated Value $5.49 (buy 10 masks for $54.90, found here for $21.96)
This is a new brand for me. I typically think "extra moisture" when I read "shower" in a K-beauty product name, these days, but I remember when I first started using K-beauty products, this confused me as, while a sheet mask is obviously not meant to be used in the shower, when there isn't much English on a package for a non-sheet-mask item, I am not sure if it's like body lotion or shower gel or cleanser or what. The website where I found this for sale didn't have English ingredients listed, but I saw pictures of what I think is supposed to represent collagen, pearl, and two kinds of seaweed, so we'll go with that. Marine collagen probably comes from fish or fish skin and is a long protein molecule that will hold on to water near the surface of the skin and provide a bit of plumping and/or will minimize the appearance of fine lines. However, it is likely too big to penetrate the skin, even if hydrolyzed (broken down into smaller parts). Seaweeds swell in water and hold on to a lot of water in general so they are going to have components (probably carbohydrates) that do similar things to collagen in solution. And pearl has a long history in Asian beauty of being a brightening ingredient. Now ground-up pearl won't penetrate the skin but some sort of extraction process may pull out minor components that are small enough to do so. This was a pretty drippy mask with lots of serum and the major benefit I noticed was moisture; I think you would have to use pearl-containing products for a long time to see an effect.
16 Brand Ocean Toks Kelp Mask - Retail Value $2
I don't know what "toks" means but I have a suspicion it's a bad spelling of "tox" based on the linked product listing (I got the product names off the information booklet provided by Beauteque). I have even less to go on for the ingredients for this one as it's from a multi-mask page with a drop-down menu, but I think we can all agree that kelp is an ingredient here. Kelp is a kind of seaweed, of course, so you can pretty much apply what I said about seaweed up above here as well. Honestly, using this mask was pretty similar to the one above, so the ingredients likely overlap quite a bit.
Pax Moly Real Black Pearl Mask Pack
I can't find this brand for sale from US-based sources and I don't want to send you off to order something from Malaysia, the Philippines, or Russia during a time when overseas packages are taking super long to arrive. This brand first showed up in Mask Maven last month and they do seem to have a lot of fun offerings. We've already talked about pearl up above and that's the kind of thing I can't really assess after one use. However, this was pretty moisturizing as well. I just looked this up and most "black" pearls are dyed or irradiated to get that color so I would assume that black pearl extracts and white pearl extracts (which are often bleached, by the way) have essentially the same properties.
Pax Moly Super Aqua Mask Pack
This one is also difficult to find from US-based sources. I'm going to guess it has collagen based on the hydration and elasticity language on the front, maybe also hyaluronic acid, which is a long carbohydrate that is too big to penetrate the skin but provides similar benefits to collagen. (Most hyaluronic acid used in industry is a byproduct of poultry and/or shellfish processing.) This one was nicely moisturizing also, though.
Missha Airy Fit Pearl Sheet Mask - Retail Value $2
This has a pearl extract so the above comments regarding pearl apply. This one has a sheet that is supposed to fit the face well and I guess it does although I have a small face so I don't usually have problems with that. This also has tea tree oil which is antibacterial and antifungal and it has some antioxidants from grapefruit and tea leaves (and a few other plant extracts); antioxidants may help minimize free radical damage from UV exposure so they may help with anti-aging effects. It didn't smell like tea tree oil (I don't hate the scent of tea tree oil but some do) and had a reasonably high amount of serum. This one would be good for general use due to the varied ingredients.
JMSolution Water Luminous SOS Ringer Mask - Retail Value $3.50
This one may be a repeat as it seems familiar but there are so many K-beauty sheet masks with similar names and ingredients that it's hard to keep them straight. This has hydrolyzed collagen and hyaluronic acid so again, should it help a lot with general moisture, especially at the surface of the skin. (I think it did.) This also has aquaxyl which is a combination of xylitol derivatives. This ingredient is supposed to help with skin hydration and lipid production although I'm not sure my biochemist's mind is making the leap as to how that would occur. I would expect it to be antibacterial as many bacteria can't metabolize xylitol which is why it's found in some toothpaste and oral rinses.
JMSolution Marine Luminous Pearl Deep Moisture Mask - Retail Value $3.50
This is a 3-step mask and most likely one of the "premium" items for the month. The first step is a serum, it's kind of gloppy and probably mostly water-based (and clear). The second step is an eye cream but the instructions tell you to use it all over your face (and there is probably enough of it for that). The eye cream part is very thick and nice for a night cream as well. And then you are supposed to use the sheet mask as step 3. Sometimes these 3-step masks leave me super oily but I used this at night and woke up the next morning with nice, smooth skin. This one also has pearl and I hate to sound like a broken record but it's hard to assess those effects after just one use. (I'm not sure if the pearl is in all three steps or just one.)
Mizon Seaweed Solution Black Mask - Retail Value $3.90
As you might expect from the name, the mask sheet is black. The mask sheet is made partly from volcanic ash which is alleged to control the production of excess sebum. This kind of makes sense since volcanic ash is kind of absorbent like clay minerals, or at least that's how I'm justifying it. I do think it worked as my skin is normally super oily and it was a little bit less so after using this. This also has adenosine and there is some language about skin's energy there and I'm not sure how they're getting that unless they're really reaching, like because adenosine is a component of the ATP that you probably learned about in high school biology class.
Niju Age Defying Collagen Mask - Retail Value $2
This one was also new to me (both brand and item). This has papaya, which does do some gentle enzymatic exfoliation. Obviously there is collagen-based on the name and we've talked about that extensively already up above. This additionally has vitamin E, which is an antioxidant, and tea leaves, another source of antioxidants. There's also allantoin that is supposed to help smooth out rough skin but that's one of those ingredients you need to use for a while to see results. (Fun fact, but a lot of allantoin used in K-beauty is extracted from cow urine.) This one was not too gloppy with the serum so it would be a good one to use in the morning (as if I had anywhere to go, I've been working from home for six months now).
Verdict: I couldn't calculate a total value for the August 2020 Beauteque Mask Maven because not all the items were on sale from reputable, US-based sources. However, there was a nice mix of brands, including some that were completely new to me. There were also some masks that would be good for daily use and others (like the 3-step one) that seemed more suitable for special occasions. I also thought everything worked well with the theme. It's getting to be that time of year when I start thinking about dry skin and the contents of this package really were good at addressing that issue.
To Wrap Up:
Can you still get this box if you sign up today? No, this was the August package. You have to sign up by the 15th to get a box for the month, so your first box would probably be September’s box, arriving in early October, or possibly October's box, arriving in early November.
ACTIVE DEAL: Save 10% off of your subscription
CODE: SHEETFACED
Value Breakdown: At $18.95 for this box, you are paying approximately $2.11 per mask.
Check out all of our past Mask Maven reviews and the best skincare boxes of 2020 as voted by MSA readers!
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What did you think of the August 2020 Beauteque Mask Maven? Do you get any K-Beauty or Asian Beauty subscriptions?
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