French brands

The short read

• Avene, Caudalie, Filorga, La Roche-Posay, NUXE, THALGO, Typology, Uriage and Vichy are the pharmacy side of the split; Garnier and L'Oreal Paris are the other. Most of those pharmacy houses hold a mask or two each, so the brand count on this page is high for its size.

• Almost every mask here prints parfum, and far fewer break an allergen out by name. We do not read anything into the gap: an ingredient row we could not resolve looks the same to us as one that is not there.

• Clay and wash-off masks are a much larger share of this group than of the catalogue, and kaolin is on rather more of these lists than its catalogue share would suggest.

• It is the tails that are thin here rather than the middle: most of the page sits in a narrow band, with a Garnier wash-off well below it and a Filorga sheet far above. The price tile's range is set by those two and describes almost none of the page.

• Many of the per-use figures here are estimated from pack size rather than counted. This is a shelf of tubes and pots rather than sachets.

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 formulated the mask. These are the entries that appear far more often here than across the 219 masks as a whole, counted by encyclopaedia entry rather than by printed name.

• Kaolin6 of 21 here·30 of 219 overall
• Glyceryl Stearate7 of 21 here·42 of 219 overall
• Citric Acid12 of 21 here·79 of 219 overall
• Caprylyl Glycol8 of 21 here·53 of 219 overall
• Fragrance (Parfum)18 of 21 here·120 of 219 overall

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

Every origin side by side

3 of the 12 origins in the catalogue clear 13 masks, which is the floor at which a page says something a filter could not. The rest stay in the catalogue and get no page, because a median over one product is not a median - but they are in this table rather than summarised out of it, because they are exactly what an unscoped superlative loses to. Every figure here is counted across all of them, so the claims above are scoped to something you can check.

What these labels print

Seven readings of the ingredient list, each counted the same way across these brands 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 15 of the 21 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 80% 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.

• Sheet9 of 21·43%
• Clay4 of 21·19%
• Wash-off3 of 21·14%
• Cream2 of 21·10%
• Overnight2 of 21·10%
• Hydrogel1 of 21·5%

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

All 21 masks from France brands

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

• 

  Garnier

  Pure Active 3-in-1 Charcoal Wash, Scrub & Mask

  25ingredients

  !6 ingredients we would look at twice

  ≈€0.19 per use

• 

  Vichy

  Normaderm 3-in-1 Peeling + Reinigungs-Creme + Maske

  23ingredients

  !6 ingredients we would look at twice

  ≈€0.77 per use

• 

  Uriage

  Eau Thermale Water Sleeping Mask

  29ingredients

  !2 ingredients we would look at twice

  ≈€1.09 per use

• 

  Caudalie

  VinoHydra Moisturising Cream Mask (Masque-Creme Hydratant)

  32ingredients

  !1 ingredient we would look at twice

  ≈€1.15 per use

• 

  La Roche-Posay

  Effaclar Purifying Clay Mask

  20ingredients

  !2 ingredients we would look at twice

  ≈€1.22 per use

• 

  Garnier

  Salicylic Tissue Mask

  26ingredients

  !3 ingredients we would look at twice

  €1.65 per use

• 

  Garnier

  SkinActive Hyaluronic Acid Barrier Repair Serum Tissue Mask

  25ingredients

  !1 ingredient we would look at twice

  €1.65 per use

• 

  Garnier

  SkinActive Hydra Bomb Tissue Mask Pomegranate

  29ingredients

  !5 ingredients we would look at twice

  €1.85 per use

• 

  Garnier

  SkinActive Pro-Retinol Tissue Mask

  24ingredients

  !2 ingredients we would look at twice

  €1.85 per use

• 

  Garnier

  SkinActive Vitamin C Tissue Mask

  21ingredients

  !3 ingredients we would look at twice

  €1.85 per use

• 

  Avène

  Soothing Moisture Mask

  26ingredients

  !2 ingredients we would look at twice

  ≈€1.86 per use

• 

  Caudalie

  Vinergetic C+ Instant Detox Mask

  33ingredients

  !12 ingredients we would look at twice

  ≈€2.08 per use

• 

  NUXE

  Prodigieuse Boost Clarifying Detox Mask

  14ingredients

  !2 ingredients we would look at twice

  ≈€2.16 per use

• 

  Typology

  Masque de Nuit Raffermissant P73 (Firming Night Mask)

  24ingredients

  !3 ingredients we would look at twice

  ≈€2.21 per use

• 

  L'Oréal Paris

  Revitalift Filler Hyaluronic Acid Tissue Mask

  14ingredients

  !1 ingredient we would look at twice

  €2.45 per use

• 

  L'Oréal Paris

  Men Expert Hydra Energetic Recharging Tissue Mask

  21ingredients

  !2 ingredients we would look at twice

  €2.95 per use

• 

  Avène

  Cleanance Detox Mask

  18ingredients

  !2 ingredients we would look at twice

  ≈€3.14 per use

• 

  L'Oréal Paris

  Revitalift Filler Glass Skin Hydrogel Glow Mask

  32ingredients

  €5.95 per use

• 

  THALGO

  Klärende Intensiv-Maske

  32ingredients

  !4 ingredients we would look at twice

  ≈€6.33 per use

• 

  On The Wild Side

  Sheet Mask Bio Cellulose Collagène Vegan

  24ingredients

  !1 ingredient we would look at twice

  €7.00 per use

• 

  Filorga

  Time-Filler Mask

  20ingredients

  !2 ingredients we would look at twice

  €12.69 per use