Activated Charcoal Face Mask - Not for me

Activated Charcoal Peel Off Mask ; Activated Charcoal Mask - secret to perfect skin ; Activated Charcoal for hair or teeth ; It was very trending for the past few months, and it definitely caught my attention. However, I was little worried about my allergies, so I bought 15 capsules of activated charcoal for my first try.

Let me begin by explaining what is activated charcoal, and what it means by "activated".

"Activated charcoal” is similar to common charcoal, but is made especially for use as a medicine. To make activated charcoal, manufacturers heat common charcoal in the presence of a gas that causes the charcoal to develop lots of internal spaces or “pores.” These pores help activated charcoal “trap” chemicals.In other words, there are many "pores" ready to be filled in by absorbing any dirt present near it. And that's what makes this mask so famous - the ability to absorb dirt and oil on the surface of the skin.

But whether it really do the trick on acne prone skin is a different story. My skin is acne prone, and thus, I have large pores. This is because when excessive oil and dirt collect in your skin, your skin swells, which is very common among acne prone skin.

I have seen many review and did research on this activated charcoal mask. It claims that it removes dirt, excessive oil, and minimize pores. So, I gave it a try. Let me show you the result below. 

Before applying mask
(Many blackheads around my nose and pores are large and visible)

1. I personally use only 2 capsules.

2.Twist open the capsule and pour the
activated charcoal out in a container
(Note: do not do this near a fan)

                                      

3.Use drinking or filtered water to mix with
the powder. Do not use pipe water as it
contains Chlorine and will dry your skin.

4.use a mask brush to mix it. Mix till the
 powder blends with the water.

Apply mask over problematic area on the face
and leave it for about 15-20 minutes or till dry.
(I leave it until its partially dry)
(I did not leave the mask for too long as it will dry
out my skin, which is something that you will
want to avoid)

This is roughly what it looks like after the mask is dry.
Well, it doesn't change to a pale grey colour because it is not a
clay mask. The colour will remain the same. I use the sense
of touch to determine if the mask is dry.

Before applying the mask, I applied 10-15 minutes of hot towel around my entire face to open up my pores (LOL, I know I already have large pores, but I still do it anyway). After the mask is dried, I wash my face with warm water. It left black stain on my face after the first (only water) wash. I was terrified and quickly use facial wash to wash my face, and it was much better. 

Even after I washed my face using a facial wash, some stain still remained on my face.
This towel is the evidence to the stain that stayed on my skin. It also prove that I wiped off
any excess stain on my face on this point.

This is what it looks like immediately after removing the mask.
If compared, the blackheads are visibly gone. However my pores
did not shrink as the reviews promised.

Because the Activated Charcoal mask drains out all the oil on the surface of my skin and I used a facial wash to clean up my face after that, my face was terribly dry. It has that "kirk kirk" sound when I touch across my face. It feels clean of course, just like a dish washer cleans that oily plate. But deep down, I know my face shouldn't be this dry. So I quickly apply moisturizer to my skin.  

After a while, my face feels a bit tight and when I smile, my face forms tiny tiny wrinkles !! Because its too dry!! Oh no!!

I keep checking my face in the mirror every half an hour or everytime I walk past a mirror. And I was shocked by the result.

After 2 hours, my blackhead appeared again. Not because the blackhead has built up
in that short amount of time, but the blackhead wasn't removed by the mask at all, it was not
removed since the beginning of time.

Another thing i realized was, not only that the activated charcoal did not suck out the dirt from my pores, it however binds the dirt, and got trapped inside my pores. If you can zoom in and see (especially around the nose), there were certain pores which was originally clear and did not have black spot, and later got the black spot (appear like blackheads) after the mask. I was so disappointed ! And then I decided, Activated Charcoal is definitely not for me. It just worsen my condition because I have large pores.

At this point, one might think that Activated Charcoal and glue will yield a better result. Or mixing it with glue is the ultimate trick to make this mask work. Let me explain why I refused to use glue. 

Have you ever read the ingredients behind a school glue? The chemicals used in glue are not formulated for skin. You might say that those molecules are not small enough to penetrate the skin, but how sure are you? Personally, i'm not taking any risk as I already have problematic face. Besides, there are so many YouTube vidoes shows how much blood and tears it cost to remove the peel off mask. 

It is always feels satisfactory to see all those tiny tiny "dirt" being pulled out from the pores. Those are sebaceous filaments. Image below is the difference between a blackhead and a sebaceous filaments. 

Sebaceous filaments functions : A sebaceous filament is a tiny collection of sebum around a hair follicle, which usually takes the form of a small hair-like strand. They usually have white or yellow color, and can be expressed from the skin by pinching. These filaments are naturally occurring, and are not a sign of infection or any other ailment. They help to channel the flow of sebum within a given skin pore, allowing it to seep gradually to the surface. (source: wikipedia) 

In lay man terms, the function of the sebaceous filaments is to keep your skin moisturized. It is very easy to be confused between whitehead and sebaceous filaments. Whiteheads lie below the surface of your skin and blackheads are at the surface. The reason blackheads look black is because when that gunk clogging up your pore is exposed to air, it oxidizes due to the melanin in skin cells, turning black or dark brown.

What then causes whiteheads? Whiteheads are considered mild form of acne, which happens a lot to my skin. And clogged pores are the main cause of whiteheads. It is a type of acne that forms when dead skin cells, oil, and bacteria become trapped within one of your pores. One cause of blocked pores is hormonal changes, which are common triggers of acne. Certain life stages like puberty and menstruation can increase the amount of sebum, or oil, your pores produce. The increased oil production causes clogged pores and whiteheads. Can be controlled by changing lifestyle and medical treatment, but its not avoidable. 

Therefore, it is useless to use peel off mask (especially glue) to pull out all the sebaceous filaments as it will start refilling the pores once its removed. You might think that by removing the old sebaceous filaments and allow new one to produce, it will reduce the chance of getting whiteheads and blackheads. Actually, by removing the old sebaceous filaments, the pores are empty which allows bacteria to sit on easily. Bacteria acts faster than your toner shrinking your pores by the way. 

In the nut shells, activated charcoal is definitely good for skin. Try using commercial, non-peeling activated charcoal mask to remove dirt instead . I am not financially ready to buy commercial activated charcoal mask as it is quite expensive. That is the reason why I tried using the capsule one and end up disappointing myself because of my large pores. I wonder if the commercial one works on me. I should definitely try it one day. 

Note : Please correct me if i'm wrong, I will definitely want to know where I went wrong with the DIY activated charcoal mask or is it really not for me.