Bliss Triple Oxygen Instant Energizing Mask

...I purchased with a £150 Bliss Gift Card that I’d received as a leaving present from work. I’d never heard of bliss before, but found out that it’s a prestigious (translation - expensive) London Spa. Obviously as I’d not heard of Bliss before, I wouldn’t normally have bought anything from them, but I was actually very intrigued by some of the skincare items they offered, this being one of them. Bliss skincare is available to buy from Bliss spas (of ...
...and 3 in New York), Bliss counters in upmarket department stores (mainly Harvey Nichols and Selfridges), online at blisslondon.co.uk, or from their mail order catalogue, which you can order on the website.

Bliss Triple Oxygen Instant Energizing Mask is available in a 100ml bottle, and will set you back a whopping £38 direct from Bliss, but it may be found cheaper elsewhere online. The product comes packaged in a white card box, with ... more

This was the second item I purchased with a £150 Bliss Gift Card that I’d received as a leaving present from work. I’d never heard of bliss before, but found out that it’s a prestigious (translation - expensive) London Spa. Obviously as I’d not heard of Bliss before, I wouldn’t normally have bought anything from them, but I was actually very intrigued by some of the skincare items they offered, this being one of them. Bliss skincare is available to buy from Bliss spas (of which there are 7, 1 located in London, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco, and 3 in New York), Bliss counters in upmarket department stores (mainly Harvey Nichols and Selfridges), online at blisslondon.co.uk, or from their mail order catalogue, which you can order on the website.

Bliss Triple Oxygen Instant Energizing Mask is available in a 100ml bottle, and will set you back a whopping £38 direct from Bliss, but it may be found cheaper elsewhere online. The product comes packaged in a white card box, with a card sleeve over it, which I find utterly ridiculous as there is absolutely no need for this extra piece of packaging. On the front of the box is the name of the product and some brief info about it, on the sides is a more detailed explanation of how the product works and what it’s supposed to do, and on the back are the instructions. There is also a blue-grey band round the bottom of the box, and the words ‘solution specific’ on the top. The only difference between what’s on the box and the card sleeve is that there’s no coloured band on the sleeve, and it has some raised circles dotted about it (which I presume are supposed to be bubbles), and a faint cloudy sky scene on the sides. What a waste of card, but at least it is recyclable.

The product comes in a cylindrical white plastic bottle, with a push-on lid. The lid doesn’t fasten very securely so it will come off if you drop it, and may come off in your toiletries bag if you take it away with you. The bottle has a pump-action dispenser, which is easily pressed down to dispense the product. The bottle has a real quality feel about it, the plastic being very thick and sturdy, and the whole thing feeling rather more heavy than I’d expected. The bottle features the same info printed on it as is on the front and back of the box.

The most prominent words on the front of the bottle, besides the product name, are, ‘with vitamin C, FluidO2™, Na PCA, and EUK-134 free-radical resisters‘. Maybe there’s someone reading this who knows exactly what all that means, but I didn’t have the foggiest. I figured Bliss must feel it will help persuade people to buy the product for them to have it written so prominently on the bottle so I went off to see if I could find out what any of it meant, and found the following explanations on the Bliss website:
“FluidO2™ - a special ‘liquid ventilation’ system, to carry stable oxygen molecules and release them on your skin’s surface.
Sodium (Na) PCA - a fantastic humectant molecule that keeps your skin hydrated without ever getting greasy.
BV-OSC - the most multi-active powerful form of vitamin C available to brighten the skin and help repair the affects of environmental damage.”
Now even knowing what those collections of letters mean, it wouldn’t be enough to persuade me to buy the product, but hey, they’re probably of the opinion (as I think a lot of manufacturers are) that if they use enough scientific sounding jargon people will believe anything they say. For those of us who require a bit more persuasion, they have the following explanation of their product:

“It’s formulated to release oxygen onto the skin, so your complexion is cleaner, brighter, fresher, and younger-looking, almost instantly. It’s like a breath of fresh air to your face.”
Now that I understand!

They recommend this mask in particularly for the following groups of people:
Those whose skin is looking dull and lifeless, lacking radiance
Anyone pushing 30, or whose skin thinks they are
Men who suffer from ingrown hairs from shaving
Acne Sufferers (Who they say should substitute this for their normal everyday cleanser)

To use the mask, you need to simply massage a generous layer onto damp skin, wait 5 minutes until a full froth forms, then rinse well. It is also recommended that you follow it with toner and/or moisturiser. It states on the box that it should be used whenever your skin needs a boost, a maximum of 3 times a week, which kind of conflicts with their advice for acne sufferers to use it as an everyday cleanser, so I’m not sure about that.

As with most masks I was unsure of how much to use, and the ‘generous layer’ suggested in the instructions is open to interpretation. One press of the dispenser doesn’t give you much product at all, so the first time I used the mask I pressed it 5 times, which gave me an amount about the size of a 10 pence piece, and decided to see how I went on with that amount.

The mask itself is quite runny, certainly more so than a lot of masks I’ve used in the past, and is a pearlescent pink colour. The texture is silky and smooth, but solid enough that it clings to my hand if I turn it upside-down. It’s really easy to massage over the skin, and as you do so it begins to turn white and get thicker and thicker until suddenly it’s a really creamy, rich lather. Up until this point I hadn’t noticed the scent, but a quick sniff reveals a rather pleasant citrussy scent.

Whilst the mask is on it foams up more and more, and I have to say this is the strangest face mask I’ve ever used. Strange but cool! The first time I used it, with the 10p sized blob mentioned earlier, I found the lather slid off my skin very easily and dripped everywhere, but the more you use, the less it does this, so I now use about twice as much. Other than a slight fizzing sensation when the mask first starts to lather up, I cannot feel the mask when it’s on.

When the 5 minutes is up, the mask is extremely easy to wash off. It doesn’t take any scrubbing as all that’s there is bubbles. My skin feels really soft, smooth and clean, and my skin looks and feels exactly as it does after a 10 minute steaming session. My pores are open, and my skin feels clean from the inside (if that makes any sense!?!).

After applying toner and moisturiser my skin feels amazing. Soft, smooth, squeaky clean, and really cool to the touch. It also definitely looks healthier, and it seems to have evened out my skin, making it slightly more uniform in texture and any blemishes less noticeable. And, wow, talk about radiant! My skin glows like it’s never glowed before! I’m truly amazed.

I’ve now been using this regularly, sometimes once a week, sometimes twice, for the last 3 months or so, and I get the same great results every time. I’ve never suffered any breakouts from using this mask, and my skin never feels greasy. I haven’t tried using it as a daily cleanser as I don’t want to use it up too quickly, it was £38 after all! I often use my usual cleanser straight after this mask, and it really feels as though it’s doing a lot more good than using it on it’s own, as it seems to penetrate deeper into the skin, due to my pores being open. It would also be great to use before another mask, as it will allow it to penetrate deeper and work a lot harder for your skin.

I think I still have loads left, but the annoying thing is I can’t really be sure, as you can’t see through the packaging or take the top off to check, and the bottle’s so heavy anyway that there’s no way you’d be able to guess how much is left from how heavy it feels. I haven’t really noticed any long term effects (the effects tend to be noticeable for a few days), though my skin does have a generally healthy appearance nowadays, but I think this is meant to be more of a ‘pick-me-up’ product for when you need it the most.

When Angel’s mam was staying with us the other week, I gave her this to try, and she loved it so much she went onto the website and bought 2 bottles of the stuff - one for her, and one for me as a thank you for introducing her to it! The reason she loved it so much was that it seems to really brighten up her aging (she’s 56) complexion.

All in all, I think this stuff is fantastic. After the disaster I had with the last product I tried from Bliss I was very pleasantly surprised indeed. I had no adverse reactions to this one, and I only have positive things to say about it. In fact, I think I might even be tempted to buy it again with my own money when my 2 bottles runs out, even at £38! I’d highly recommend it to anyone with that sort of money to spare! 

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