Review: Whamisa Organic Facial Mask Pack Sea Kelp

A Korean brand that was really in focus for many kbeauty bloggers in the last year was Whamisa, a natural cosmetics brand using certified organic ingredients for their products. The brand was hard to purchase outside Korea first but more and more online retailers started selling their products. Honeysu is one of the first retailers in Europe (based in Belgium) selling Whamisa products and I was more than happy to be asked to review a bunch of Whamisa masks. Eventually, you saw the picture on Instagram I posted. Today, I will tell you about my impression of the Whamisa Organic Facial Mask Pack Sea Kelp, whereas next time I’ll be focussing on their hydrogel masks:

The Korean brand Whamisa is relatively young and was founded in 2010 as certified natural cosmetics brand. Their key ingredients focus on plant based fermentation extracts. The brand name is written in Chinese characters which have the meaning of flowers and beauty and the use of four key components of natural materials in their products.  The attractive ingredients are combined with a beautiful packaging design in light colors. Some of the products are decorated with flower illustrations.

The Whamisa Organic Facial Mask Pack Sea Kelp is quite a special mask because it is not a soaked cotton sheet or regular hydrogel, but it is made from 100% sea kelp, which is the reason why this mask has a green color. The mask is purely made of natural ingredients and consists in 90.37 % of organic ingredients. I want to point out some of the ingredients of this mask below:

Kelp

Kelp is not only healthy for eating, but also does it have benefits for the skin. It is rich in antioxidants and minerals and thereby benefits the skin in terms of anti-aging. In how far a mask sheet made of kelp influences the skin is not clear, since usually the effectiveness is correlated with the procession of the kelp, eg. by using the extract.

Lactobacillus/ Aloe Maculata (?) Ferment Extract

I’m a bit irritated about having Aloe maculata here instead of the commonly used Aloe Vera (Barbadensis). Aloe Maculata is a aloe plant growing in South Africa.  The gel of this plant forms foam with water, which is why it is used as soap. It produces a yellowish gel, which has similar properties like aloe vera, so it is primarily moisturizing and antibacterial/ anti-inflammatory. I also read that Aloe maculata is more resistant to higher salt concentrations, so maybe this is one of the reasons why using this, since sea kelp is used for the sheet mask. I wrote Whamisa an email asking about the Aloe and hopefully they will reply and tell me whether there is a specific reason in using this Aloe specimen instead of the more commonly used Aloe Vera (also confusing: the import label says Aloe Maculata, whereas the official page of Whamisa in its English translation says Aloe barbadensis). Ferment filtrate is nutrients-rich. It contains many vitamins, amino acids and proteins and helps to improve the moisture level of the skin.

Licorice Extract

Licorice extract is a powerful antioxidant with anti-inflammatory and skin-conditioning properties and brightening. It is also used for fragrance in some cosmetics.

You will find the other ingredients listed on COSDNA, and you will discover that most of them are plant derived extracts and oils. I love the ingredients lists in total!

The Whamisa Organic Facial Mask Pack Sea Kelp is targeting wrinkles and dull and swollen face. But not only: it also improves the smoothness of the skin and the moisture level and has been tested by Gyoung Hee University. The sheet mask is divided into two parts, an upper part and lower area, folded between plastic sheets. The sheet mask has a marine green color and feels like soaked paper, kind of thin and slimey. The first thing to discover is the scent it has: it smells very strongly of algae (it is 100% kelp, so do not expect anything else :D) and if you are sensitive towards these kinds of scents you will probably have a hard time to leave this on your face. Since I have a salt water fish tank myself I was well prepared and kind of used to the scent, although it is surely not my favorite scent for skincare. The kelp sheets were soaked thoroughly with a yellowish, sticky essence. They are so nicely soaked, that the lower part of the mask kept sliding off my face. I can advice you to put this sheet mask on and lie down, so it will stay on your face and you will have some time to relax. Generally, I would advice you to use this mask in the evening, since the yellow essence tends to make the skin a bit yellowish at first and needs some more time than other sheet masks to absorb. Once it absorbs it definitely leaves a tacky and tighter feeling on the skin and seems to brighten up the skin. It also gives a nice glow and feels moisturzing. I didn’t experience any irritations while using this mask.

Whamisa totally has four different sheet masks. The  Whamisa Organic Facial Mask Pack Sea Kelp mask is one of them. Furthermore there are three different hydrogel sheet masks available, which I will review in a couple of days as well. Don’t they look beautiful together?

I do like the Whamisa Organic Facial Mask Pack Sea Kelp and it has been my first kelp mask and my first Whamisa product in the same time. I can also understand the raving of many bloggers about this sheet mask. The scent of the mask is something special though, which might put you off if you do not like the strong algae scent. It also does have a superb ingredients list and all the products are labelled whether they are certified or not. I wish that more brands will take such a way of labelling more serious. My only tiny downside is the price, since Whamisa products are more expensive than other Korean brands. On the other hand the high price is justified by the origin of the ingredients. After all it is up to you whether to want to spend more money and know where your ingredients are from that you are putting on your face, or you prefer the cheaper versions – which I didn’t try, so I cannot compare it for you here (Whamisa was the first kelp mask I got to know, but is no secret that Tonymoly came up with a kelp mask, too).

You can get this mask from the Belgian online retailer Honeysu for 12 €  9 US$ sale until supplies last (Yes, the price is for one mask and yes, it is really expensive compared to other sheet masks)! They ship within Europe quite affordably and most important super fast- but they also ship to other countries (higher shipping costs though). Honeysu doesn’t carry many brands, but they focus on products with non-harmful ingredients. I must say I really like the looks of the shop and I love their Instagram account. The pictures posted are always so beautiful! For my readers from the US you can get this mask from Amazon, too (14.88 US$).

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Just as a short reminder: All products mentioned and reviewed on this blog are of my personal opinions. This product here was sent to me for reviewing purpose by https://www.honeysu.com which doesn’t influence me in providing my honest opinion on the products.