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. This is the February box and was received in mid-March, so they are just about back on track after some delays late last year.
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: $15 per month + $3.95 U.S. 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 U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia, and parts of Asia (see international shipping costs during checkout)
Beauteque Mask Maven February 2021 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 "All About Milk."
On to the items:
MJCare Real Cheese Soothing and Calming Mask
I could only find this for sale from sites in Russia and Ukraine that were not in English so I’m not linking to them. However, I did find some ingredients. Despite the picture, the cheese here is cottage cheese and is supposed to help increase skin elasticity. It has amino acids and vitamins and is also advertised as strengthening the skin barrier and hydrating the skin.
There is no real objective way to measure these effects after using the mask once. (Well, I guess you can say it was hydrating!) This has a number of moisturizing compounds including sodium hyaluronate (long carbohydrate polymer that holds on to water near the surface of the skin) and beta-glucan, a type of soluble fiber found in oats and barley that is likely to have similar effects as the sodium hyaluronate. This also has antioxidants and probably a little caffeine from coffee and green tea.
Although the mask is slightly yellowish in color, it does not smell like cheese. One thing that is cool is that the mask sheet, itself, is made from fibers extracted from banana peel – I always like to learn about how materials that are normally just thrown out can be used. And it felt just like a regular mask sheet!
MJCare Real Cheese Firming and Lifting Mask
This one was pretty similar to the one above after one use (e.g., was hydrating and had the same banana-peel-based sheet and yellow color but lack of cheese smell). It has somewhat different ingredients, though, including hydrolyzed collagen (more moisture, this time from a protein instead of a carbohydrate) and alginine (extracted from algae), and xanthan gum, all of which are going to have similar hydration functions. There are also a lot of palmitoylated peptides; these are peptides chemically modified with a fatty acid that are supposed to have improved skin penetration. However, it seems from Wikipedia that these types of molecules stimulate synthesis of macromolecules in the extracellular matrix, so maybe they are helping improve your own natural collagen production. At any rate, this is all going on, on a microscopic level, and probably takes a fair amount of time, although there is at least one study backing up antiaging uses of these molecules.
NOHJ Milky Glow Deep Aqua Mask – Retail Value $3.30
This has a milk extract in it and the serum is a little bit milky although it absorbs better than some other milk/cream masks I have used. It also has rice bran extract, which is supposed to be brightening (not sure how, although I know a lot of gentle exfoliators like this one also have rice bran in them). This one also has calendula and purslane, which are soothing, and aloe, which is moisturizing, and just a ton of fruit extracts (blueberry, plum, apple, kiwi) so it has vitamins and antioxidants as well.
NOHJ Milky Glow Nourishing Mask - Estimated Value $1.19 (buy 10 for $11.90)
This and the previous one are probably actually priced about the same but they weren’t both in stock on the same site! In general take pricing of K-beauty products with a grain of salt as a lot depends on where the products are shipping from, whether or not shipping is included in the item price, etc. This one also has milk and rice bran extract as well as aloe, purslane, and the same fruit extracts as the previous mask. Niacinamide appears to be a difference (unless I missed a list item in the tiny print of the ingredients lists) so this one may also be brightening and may reduce redness.
At any rate, I found using these two masks to be about the same, so if you are interested in these effects, I’d say go for the one that’s less expensive that comes in a larger quantity so you can use it over time.
Farmstay Visible Difference Milk Mask - Estimated Value $0.82 (buy 10 masks for $8.18)
The marketing talk for this one mentions restoring vitality to tired skin but I don’t really know what that means in scientific terms. (They are more specific about some of the other products from this product line.) This one was really drippy with lots of extra serum so be careful what shirt you’re wearing with it. Definitely worth it if you want to try an inexpensive milk mask, though, to see if this particular ingredient may be for you, and probably also good for really dry skin.
A’Pieu Coconut Milk Mask – Retail Value $3.10
First off, this does not smell particularly like coconut, so if you don’t like the scent of coconut, not to worry. It does have a light (but pleasant) fragrance. The coconut masks are “infused with dietary fiber” and that is absolutely not going to penetrate the skin but I suppose it may hold on to moisture near the surface of the skin and help minimize the appearance of fine lines, at least temporarily. This one also has B vitamins and a fungal extract that is supposed to improve skin elasticity. (Can’t speculate on that further as I don’t know the actual name of the fungus.) I like seeing some different ingredients for once; although I am happy with hydration and antioxidants that show up so often, it is nice to get some variety every now and then.
A’Pieu Strawberry Milk Mask – Retail Value $3.10
This is similar to the coconut mask from the same product line but is more for brightness; it has vitamin C from strawberry and also pearl extract, which has a long history in Asian beauty products as a brightening ingredient. (Pearl powder would be too large to penetrate the skin but pearl extracts might, depending on how they are processed, which of course is too much detail for a product page on an e-commerce site.) It’s hard to assess brightening after only one use but this was definitely hydrating and didn’t cause my face to be too oily later in the day, even though I have very oily skin and that can be a problem with some sheet masks.
A’Pieu Real Big Yogurt One Bottle Mask, Mango - Estimated Value $3.20
At the site where I found this product line for sale, this particular item was out of stock, and the different types had different prices, so I’ve estimated based on the non-sale prices of some of the others that are similar. Unfortunately, the ingredients list was not in English. Yogurt is fermented, of course, and probiotics for the skin are quite popular these days, even though I’m skeptical that they would actually establish populations among the microorganisms already present on the skin’s surface. Yogurt also has lots of proteins/peptides from the milk it’s made from and maybe a few additional vitamins from the fermentation process. Mango is a source of vitamin C (and probably other vitamins), of course. I found this to be hydrating but not too goopy, plus it smelled nice and was non-irritating.
Mijin Cosmetics Royal Jelly Essence Mask
I couldn’t find this one for sale with U.S. prices from a standard source but I found a brief summary of some ingredients. This has a bit of that artificial honey scent I often associate with K-beauty products (royal jelly is a bee-derived ingredient – but of course with the milk theme, none of this month’s offerings are vegan). I do not know why the package says “gross and nourishing” (like I don’t know what the people who designed the packaging think “gross” means, but it’s probably not the same thing that comes to mind for me). Royal jelly may, like honey, have some antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties (I think it helped with some redness I was experiencing) and is also full of minerals.
Verdict: I couldn't calculate a total value for the February 2021 Beauteque Mask Maven because many of the items were not available from reliable and/or U.S.-based retailers. It’s interesting to me that you can pick one ingredient (milk extracts, in this case) and build a whole themed box around it, and still come away with such a variety of different masks. As it happens this month, a lot of the masks have ingredients that are expected to exert effects over time instead of right away, so I feel like I couldn’t make very many conclusions as to effectiveness, but everything was fun to try and a lot of the masks were new to me (though I’ve definitely used the A’Pieu strawberry milk mask before and also at least one of the NOHJ Milky Glow masks before, and a different one of the yogurt masks). I’d say this was a fairly typical package from Mask Maven and I’m also glad their shipping seems to be back on track after a delay with the December package – I’ve experienced a lot of delays in the past few months and not every subscription box has managed to turn things around.
To Wrap Up:
Can you still get this box if you sign up today? No, this was the February package. You have to sign up by the 15th to get the current month's box, so your first box would probably be April’s box.
ACTIVE DEAL: Save 10% off of your subscription
CODE: SHEETFACED
Value Breakdown: At $18.95 ($15 + $3.95 shipping) 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 2021 as voted by MSA readers!
Keep Track of Your Subscriptions: Add this box to your subscription list or wishlist!
What did you think of the February 2021 Beauteque Mask Maven? Do you get any K-Beauty or Asian Beauty subscriptions?
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