Will This Fizzing Face Mask Give Your Dull Skin a Glow?Radical Skincare’s Instant Revitalizing Mask is gonna Snap! Crackle! Pop! all over you

What do you do when your skin looks blah—maybe it’s PMS; maybe you’ve just been awake for too many hours—and yet you need to push on and somehow look halfway decent for the evening?

You do a pre-game face mask, that’s what. Something to get the circulation going; to gently exfoliate and hydrate so that you don’t need to solely rely on a high-coverage foundation to fake good skin. Like a quickie facial, if you will.

Yes, you can do this in two steps (see my “Peel, Mask, Moisturize” mantra). But likely, if it’s the end of a weekday, ain’t nobody got time for that. Which is why I thought Radical Skincare’s Instant Revitalizing Mask, above, sounded like the ultimate. You might’ve noticed this new beauty brand popping up at Sephora lately and getting coverage in magazines. Their whole deal is high-potency, high-performance skincare that gives you “radical results”—hence the name. Had to admit, I was intrigued.

The Instant Revitalizing Mask promised to, well, revitalize my face. And who wouldn’t want that? It’s meant to soothe, hydrate and boost radiance… but they also use beauty BS terms like “teaches skin to breathe,” “stock up on energy,” etc. Well, whatever. If it left my skin glowing, they could say what they want. Obviously, the other cool part was that it foams, pops and fizzes on contact. Fun!

Here’s the hygienic pump container:

And here’s what the mask looks like—slightly yellowish and you can see it’s starting to fizz.

Unfortunately, three separate testing attempts later, and I’ve yet to manage leaving the stuff on my face for longer than 60 seconds. They’re not kidding about the high-potency ingredients. On my sensitive skin, it stung like a bitch! Just so itchy and irritating that I couldn’t even stand it.

BUT! This doesn’t mean it’s a crap product. It’s just crap for people with sensitivity. I got my mom to try it, to see if it was just me who couldn’t tolerate it—and she was totally fine. In fact, she loved how it felt and smelled, and thought it did make a real difference in giving her face a glow. If you have pretty resilient skin, then I think Radical Skincare’s is the mask that’ll give you the most results.

Me, imma gonna stick with Bliss Triple Oxygen Instant Energizing Mask, which also has a bubbling action, but doesn’t irritate me at all: