All Night Eye Masks
A new-to-me-brand, VIIcode, reached out to me recently to see if I’d be interested in trying their Oxygen Eye Mask for All Night Repair. You know how much I love trying out new brands and masks, so of course I said yes! VIIcode kindly sent me a set of six eye masks. Thank you, VIIcode!
What It Does
These eye patches are meant to be worn overnight for up to eight hours. The masks claim to refresh and soothe the undereye area, minimize signs of aging, and reduce fine lines and wrinkles.
At $55 for a box of six masks, these eye patches are somewhat pricey (it comes out to $9.17 per pair).
What’s In The Masks
According to the eye mask packaging, the product provides “everything your eye skin needs to be healthy-all the essential vitamins, antioxidants, proteins, botanicals, peptides and essential fatty acids.”
Key ingredients, per VIIcode.com:
- Sodium Hyaluronate: Boosts skin’s moisture content, reduce inflammation, and help prevent moisture loss.
- Sodium PCA: Helps to retain moisture, prevents our skin cells from losing water and drying out, reduces inflammation, and prevents skin from aging.
- Vitamin E: An antioxidant that neutralizes the oxidant effect of free radicals, which damage collagen and cause skin dryness, fine lines, and wrinkles.
- Allantoin: Helps to soften and protect, while actively soothing skin. It also stimulates cell regeneration, promoting healthy skin.
- Aloe barbadensis, Algin: Helps to hydrate your skin.
However…what the website doesn’t say is that the eye masks contain methylparaben and propylparaben. The back of the box that I received listed these ingredients, among others. I try my best not to buy skin care products containing parabens. To be perfectly honest, had I known that the ingredient list included parabens, I wouldn’t have agreed to try the eye masks. I just double checked the brand’s website and the full ingredient list is not on the product page.
In case you’re interested, the full ingredients as listed on the box are: glycerin, carbomer, cellulose, tetrasodiumEDTA, allantoin, aloe barbadensis, lavandula angustifolia, methylparaben, propylparaben, smartQ10, aqua, algin, cellulose gum, citric acid, sorbitol, sodiumPCA, butylene glycol, y-PGA, sodium hyaluronate, vitamin E, sodium ascorbyl phosphate, ethylbisiminomethylguaiacol manganese chloride.
Trying the Masks
Despite my usual paraben avoidance I decided to try the masks. The eye masks come in individually packaged pairs; you remove them from their package, peel the sticker from the back, and apply them to your undereye area.
The directions didn’t say anything about whether to use eye cream before applying the masks. So I decided to skip eye cream—I didn’t want it to prevent the masks from adhering. I also didn’t apply other skin care products before applying the masks so as not to use anything that might cause the masks to slip from my skin. I didn’t put the masks too close to my immediate undereye area; at the time I had what I think was a tiny sty on my right lower eyelid (it’s gone now) and I didn’t want the mask to irritate it. Bad timing!
The eye masks felt cooling, which was lovely. I didn’t notice any scent, which is good, considering the masks sit on your sensitive eye area. These eye masks are different from others I’ve tried in that the top layer that faces away from your skin is papery, and the layer that sits on your skin is a squishy gel material. They really do stick to the face rather well.
What I didn’t consider before trying these masks is that they might contribute to my trouble getting to sleep. I have a hard time falling asleep nearly every night and something as simple as sticking something to my face can send my mind into a tailspin of worry. “What if the masks move around and poke me in the eye,” “what if they start to irritate my skin overnight and I wake up with messed-up undereyes”…that kind of thing. So I made it about 25 minutes of wear time in bed before I decided to remove the masks. But it was my mind and nothing about the masks themselves that made me decide to take them off. Apparently overnight masks are not for me unless they absorb into your skin, like a sleeping mask.
My Second Attempt
I did want to give the eye masks another shot so I decided to try wearing them during the day.
This time I applied them a little closer to my undereye area.
After about an hour and a half, my undereye area started to sting very slightly. It was a super mild sensation but I decided to remove them, because you just don’t want to mess with your undereye area. Once I removed the masks the sensation went away and my skin didn’t look irritated. So the masks might have been fine for eight hours, but I’m still glad I didn’t chance it.
Overall Thoughts
Unfortunately, these eye masks are not for me, for a variety of reasons. I like the concept, but the parabens wigged me out, my brain made it hard for me to handle leaving the masks on overnight, and they stung just a tad. I don’t enjoy writing negative reviews of products, but my goal is to be honest here. It wouldn’t be right for me to write a glowing review of something that didn’t work out for me.
I do really appreciate VIIcode sending me these masks to try! Thank you again to the brand.
**The brand gifted me the products in this post for consideration.**
