Masks we group for brightening

The short read

• The dearest median application of the shelves with a page here, above the catalogue's. It is not the dearest of every concern in the catalogue, and the table below names the ones that are.

• The grouping is ours: a mask is here because its stated purpose and its formula point at an uneven skin tone, not because we found the word “brightening” on the box.

• A smaller share of this shelf carries nothing the encyclopaedia flags to check in pregnancy than of any other shelf with a page - a reason to read the list rather than a verdict on the shelf. Almost all of it is free of a drying alcohol.

• The lists are the second longest of the shelves with a page here. Length and price move together on this shelf, which is not true everywhere on the site: the sheet-mask page is built on their not moving together at all.

What these lists print that others do not

Not the most common ingredients - water is on nearly every list ever written and tells you nothing about who a mask is for. These are the entries that appear far more often on this shelf than across the 219 masks as a whole, counted by encyclopaedia entry rather than by printed name. A name appearing here is a reading of the label, not a statement that it does anything.

• Ascorbic Acid9 of 36 here·10 of 219 overall
• Niacinamide22 of 36 here·46 of 219 overall
• Adenosine12 of 36 here·28 of 219 overall
• Hydroxyethylcellulose9 of 36 here·31 of 219 overall

Names without a link have no encyclopaedia entry yet, so we make no claim about them beyond the count.

The sixteen concerns side by side

The dataset sorts masks into 16 concerns, and 4 have a page. One is excluded by the 50% ceiling, because a page over that much of the catalogue is the catalogue with a new heading, and two fall under the floor of 13. Most of the rest are already published under another heading - every oil-control mask is on the oily skin page, every firmness mask on the mature skin page - and re-heading our own indexed shelf is worse than re-heading the catalogue; the build recomputes every one of those overlaps and refuses a page that crosses 85%. Two clear every mechanical test and are left out on a judgement instead, both sitting close to the catalogue baseline on price and list length, and neither is excluded for good. Every figure here is counted across all of them, so the superlatives above are scoped to something you can check.

A mask is usually grouped under more than one concern, so the columns do not sum to 219. The grouping is ours throughout, read from what each mask sets out to do and what its formula suggests.

What these labels print

Seven readings of the ingredient list, each counted the same way across this shelf and across the whole catalogue, so the second column is the baseline the first is worth reading against. Every one of them is a statement about what is printed on a pack - not about what a mask does, and not a verdict on any of them. The pregnancy flag in particular is a reason to read a list rather than a warning: it marks a mask carrying something the encyclopaedia says to check, which is a different thing from a mask being unsafe.

Vegan status is unrecorded for 27 of the 36 masks here, so that row counts only the packs where we found it stated - unrecorded is not the same as not vegan. How far into a list we can read is its own reading: the encyclopaedia has an entry for a median of 82.5% of each list here, against 82% across the catalogue. The rest is printed in names the site cannot yet decode, and an undecoded name is one we make no claim about either way - what we do not know.

Which formats these are

A format is the plainest thing about a mask that is not on its ingredient list - what you buy it in and how you use it - and it explains a good deal of what the readings above look like. A shelf of pots and tubes carries longer, oilier lists than a shelf of sachets, and its price per use is worked out rather than counted.

• Sheet17 of 36·47%
• Hydrogel9 of 36·25%
• Cream3 of 36·8%
• Overnight3 of 36·8%
• Wash-off3 of 36·8%
• Exfoliating1 of 36·3%

Formats without a link have too few masks in the catalogue to carry a page of their own.

All 36 masks we group for brightening

Cheapest use first. Every one is on sale in the EU and has a published ingredient list we could source and check.

• 

  Balea

  Gesichtsmaske Niacinamide

  17ingredients

  !2 ingredients we would look at twice

  €0.23 per use

• 

  Balea

  Gesichtsmaske Vitamin C

  23ingredients

  !5 ingredients we would look at twice

  €0.23 per use

• 

  alverde Naturkosmetik

  Gesichtsmaske Q10 mit Vitamin C

  40ingredients

  !11 ingredients we would look at twice

  ≈€0.32 per use

• 

  COSRX

  Ultimate Nourishing Rice Overnight Spa Mask

  19ingredients

  ≈€0.92 per use

• 

  Yeauty

  Tuchmaske Avocado Cucumber Niacinamide

  29ingredients

  !3 ingredients we would look at twice

  €0.95 per use

• 

  The Beauty Mask Company

  Tuchmaske Berry Love

  16ingredients

  !1 ingredient we would look at twice

  €1.15 per use

• 

  Medicube

  Kojic Acid Turmeric Night Wrapping Mask

  22ingredients

  !3 ingredients we would look at twice

  ≈€1.20 per use

• 

  I'm From

  Rice Mask

  43ingredients

  ≈€1.30 per use

• 

  belif

  Super Knights Vitamin Mask

  26ingredients

  !3 ingredients we would look at twice

  ≈€1.32 per use

• 

  Schaebens

  Tuchmaske AHA Peeling

  17ingredients

  !4 ingredients we would look at twice

  €1.45 per use

• 

  Schaebens

  Tuchmaske Vitamin C

  19ingredients

  !1 ingredient we would look at twice

  €1.45 per use

• 

  Schaebens

  Tuchmaske Summer Glow

  44ingredients

  !3 ingredients we would look at twice

  €1.55 per use

• 

  SOME BY MI

  Real Vitamin Brightening Care Mask

  19ingredients

  !2 ingredients we would look at twice

  €1.55 per use

• 

  The Ordinary

  AHA 30% + BHA 2% Peeling Solution

  24ingredients

  !3 ingredients we would look at twice

  ≈€1.80 per use

• 

  Garnier

  SkinActive Vitamin C Tissue Mask

  21ingredients

  !3 ingredients we would look at twice

  €1.85 per use

• 

  Balea

  Glass Skin Collagen Maske

  17ingredients

  !1 ingredient we would look at twice

  €1.95 per use

• 

  BULLRICH

  Tuchmaske Vitamin C + Retinol

  11ingredients

  !1 ingredient we would look at twice

  €1.95 per use

• 

  Selfie Project

  Tuchmaske Nourishing #LittleOtter

  21ingredients

  !1 ingredient we would look at twice

  €1.95 per use

• 

  Elizavecca

  Aqua Deep Power Ringer Mask Pack

  28ingredients

  !3 ingredients we would look at twice

  €1.99 per use

• 

  numbuzin

  No.3 Tingle-Pore Softening Sheet Mask

  42ingredients

  !10 ingredients we would look at twice

  €2.17 per use

• 

  Erborian

  BB Shot Mask

  34ingredients

  !9 ingredients we would look at twice

  ≈€3.75 per use

• 

  Petitfee

  Black Pearl & Gold Hydrogel Mask Pack

  33ingredients

  !4 ingredients we would look at twice

  €3.84 per use

• 

  TONYMOLY

  Master Lab Sheet Mask Vitamin C

  33ingredients

  !5 ingredients we would look at twice

  €3.89 per use

• 

  hautsache

  Gesichtsmaske Brightening

  33ingredients

  €3.95 per use

• 

  Svenja Walberg

  Glass Skin Mask Pink PDRN [DNA]

  26ingredients

  €3.95 per use

• 

  Benton

  Snail Bee High Content Mask Pack

  27ingredients

  !1 ingredient we would look at twice

  €4.09 per use

• 

  Medicube

  PDRN Pink Collagen Gel Mask

  43ingredients

  !2 ingredients we would look at twice

  €4.41 per use

• 

  Abib

  Collagen Gel Mask Sedum Jelly

  41ingredients

  !1 ingredient we would look at twice

  €4.45 per use

• 

  Medicube

  Kojic Acid Turmeric Brightening Gel Mask

  35ingredients

  !4 ingredients we would look at twice

  €4.73 per use

• 

  COSRX

  The Alpha-Arbutin Discoloration Care Hydrogel Mask

  44ingredients

  !1 ingredient we would look at twice

  €5.06 per use

• 

  Anua

  Rice 70 Glow Collagen Mask

  42ingredients

  €5.54 per use

• 

  numbuzin

  No.5 Vitamin Spotlight Sheet Mask

  33ingredients

  !2 ingredients we would look at twice

  €5.68 per use

• 

  Anua

  Peach 70 Niacin Brightening Collagen Mask

  44ingredients

  €6.52 per use

• 

  Susanne Kaufmann

  Glow Mask

  45ingredients

  !7 ingredients we would look at twice

  ≈€10.29 per use

• 

  Rodial

  Vit C Energising Face Mask

  30ingredients

  !1 ingredient we would look at twice

  €11.09 per use

• 

  Shiseido

  Vital Perfection LiftDefine Radiance Face Mask

  81ingredients

  !12 ingredients we would look at twice

  €11.86 per use