The Best Face Masks for Sensitive Skin
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Reviewed by Dr. Diana Rangaves, PharmD
If you have sensitive skin, brace yourself every time you buy and apply a new product. What’s going to happen now? Luckily, there are plenty of masks for sensitive skin on the market that you can use worry-free, so what are you waiting for?
Can You Use Face Masks on Sensitive Skin?
Absolutely! You get the green light to use face masks. Just make sure you’re choosing the right ones. Opt for products designed for your skin type, and look for ones that address your sensitive skin-specific concerns, such as redness, irritation, or inflammation. Do this and you’ll ride the speed train straight to Calm Skin Town!
Why Are Face Masks Good for Sensitive Skin?
Face masks are designed to give your skin longer exposure to skincare ingredients than face washes or rub-in products do. By applying a cream, clay, gel, or peel-off mask, or putting on a sheet mask, you give your skin that much more of an opportunity to reap the benefits of the product. If you choose the right product, that means that your skin has longer to soak up the moisture and calming ingredients it needs to stop being such a drama queen all the time! So yes, face masks can be great for sensitive skin.
What to Look for in a Face Mask for Sensitive Skin
When your skin tends to react to products, the weather, and pretty much anything else it comes into contact with, there are certain skincare ingredients you’ll definitely want on your side:
Aloe Vera. This soothing conditioner is sure to calm down inflamed skin fast! Aloe vera truly does it all--everything from eczema and itching to redness, sunburn, and dry skin feels better in the presence of this plant.
Green Tea. Green tea is rich with antioxidants, which fight oxidative stress and keep skin from swelling and getting red and irritated. Like aloe, green tea is a great remedy for a whole host of skin issues.
Cucumber. You can throw some cucumber slices over your eyes while you wear a face mask if you want, but why not just look for a formula that contains them already? Cucumber is great for soothing and cooling skin, bringing much-welcome relief, and is especially helpful for easing puffiness.
Honey. With honey, you get antiseptic and antibacterial properties plus some extremely gentle exfoliation that won’t upset sensitive skin’s delicate balance.
Lavender. This herb is a leader in the skin-soothing department, providing anti-inflammatory benefits to treat angry skin. It works well on everything from blotchiness and redness to acne scarring and more.
Avocado Oil. Avocado oil has occlusive and emollient qualities, ensuring that moisture stays in your skin to keep it happy. Since it also treats dryness and inflammation, it’s ideal for those with both dry and sensitive skin, and may even boost collagen production.
Allantoin. This protective ingredient works to bring moisture throughout the skin, adding some gentle anti-aging benefits that won’t cause a reaction. Since it also has the ability to calm inflamed skin, allantoin is especially helpful for sensitive skin.
Niacinamide. Niacinamide is a form of vitamin B3 that pairs well with exfoliators like AHAs, allowing them to be effective without irritating sensitive skin. That makes it a great addition to exfoliating masks!
What to Avoid in a Face Mask for Sensitive Skin
Here are a few skincare bad boys you’ll want to keep far away from that sensitive skin of yours:
Alcohol. Alcohol is included in some formulas to help them feel lightweight and disappear quickly into skin, but it’s incredibly drying and triggering to those with sensitive skin. Avoid alcohols like propanol if you can.
Artificial Fragrance. Lots of brands want their face masks to smell good, but they’ll end up making you more red, itchy, and irritated in the process! Artificial fragrance is a big no-no for those with sensitive skin, so look for naturally scented products or those that come without any scent at all.
Granules. Some exfoliating masks have a lot of small particles that work to exfoliate skin. This can be great for those with oily skin, but is going to instantly set off your sensitive skin.
Salicylic Acid. The same goes for salicylic acid. This is included in formulas to exfoliate and get rid of breakouts, but it may be too harsh for sensitive skin to handle.
Parabens. While parabens are more often found in hair care products, sometimes they make it into face masks, too, to preserve them. The problem is that they’re some of the worst for sensitive skin, plus they can cause health issues and even environmental issues when washed down your drain.
1. Blu Atlas Purifying Face Mask
What you want out of a face mask is to get deeper and longer-lasting benefits than you would from any other skincare product. In the case of this best face mask for sensitive skin, you can expect a clearer complexion that can stand up to all the environmental aggressors and other foes out there without breaking a sweat. Because this formula is made with gentle ingredients (99% of which are derived from natural sources), and designed to strengthen, it’s an optimal choice for those with sensitive skin.
Kaolin clay and charcoal are the ingredients behind this mask’s purifying powers, as they suck out impurities from your pores and mop up any excess oil. Then, a combination of goji berry extract and red algae inundates the skin with antioxidants and micronutrients to support healthy, fortified skin. To ensure moisture and calm, moringa oil, grape seed oil, and glycerin seep in. The result is instant relief and a plump, hydrated feel once you’ve rinsed this bad boy off.
2. Andalou Naturals Pumpkin Honey Glycolic Mask
Exfoliation is important for people with all skin types, even those whose skin tends to overreact. With this Glycolic Mask from Andalou Naturals, you get mild exfoliation, skin smoothing, and brightening benefits without an overreaction in sight. This formula is 98% natural, gluten-free, and vegan.
Pumpkin puree is the first ingredient listed, used for its softening properties and its ability to calm aroused skin. Aloe is also included for its conditioning and anti-inflammatory benefits, manuka honey promotes skin healing, and tamanu seed oil encourages your skin to make more collagen for a youthful look. The exfoliation comes from glycolic acid and natural enzymes from pineapple extract, which help loosen the bonds holding dead skin on to give you a renewed complexion and healthy glow.
3. SkinCeuticals Phyto Corrective Masque
This masque works as a quick refresher or overnight treatment - take your pick. Using a number of botanicals, the formula quenches your skin’s thirst while bringing comfort and calm to sensitive skin. It’s a great product to use when you’ve had a long day or feel a skin reaction coming on, as it quickly reduces irritation and shuts down redness.
Some of the ingredient highlights include cucumber, thyme, and olive extracts for their comforting power, dipeptide to reduce your skin’s reaction to heat, and hyaluronic acid to disperse moisture throughout the layers of your skin. Grapefruit extract will clear out pores to brighten your skin tone, and mulberry root tackles discoloration and irritation.
4. Youth to the People Superberry Hydrate+Glow Dream Mask
Using an overnight mask simplifies the whole process, as you can just apply it before bed and forget it’s there rather than waiting around 15 minutes to rinse or peel off a product. This one in particular is impressively calming, and works well for those with both dry and sensitive skin due to its moisturizing ingredients.
Squalane is one of the most important moisturizing ingredients, delivering hydration without clogging pores. There is hyaluronic acid in here, too, plus panthenol for even greater moisture retention. The superberries are the highlight of this product, though, as maqui, goji, acai, and prickly pear bring nutrients, antioxidants, and lasting relief for redness, swelling, and discomfort.
5. Cocokind Resurfacing Sleep Mask
So many of the best face masks for sensitive skin are overnight products! Like this Resurfacing Sleep Mask from Cocokind that gets to work conditioning, balancing, and brightening skin while you’re off in dreamland. It’s great for waking up fatigued faces, erasing fine lines, wrinkles, and dark spots, and treating skin inflammation.
Bakuchiol is an important addition to this formula, giving you all the anti-aging benefits of retinol without any harshness. Wild indigo upgrades lackluster skin, beta-glucan calms, and squalane protects your skin’s moisture barrier. There is also cucumber fruit water in here for extra soothing, and jojoba seed oil to nourish and soften.
6. Aveeno Oat Mask
If you’ve known about your sensitive skin for a while, you’ve probably tried a few oat-based products over the years, or at least heard that oats might help your skin take a chill pill. Because oats bind to the skin, they create a protective barrier, keeping the good stuff in and the bad stuff out. Oats, plus other plant-based goodies in this formula, return equilibrium to sensitive skin.
Pumpkin seed extract plays an important role in this product, increasing your skin’s vitality, and feverfew gets to work on redness and irritation. With results in just 5-10 minutes of wear, this mask is a convenient way to get your comfort back.
7. First Aid Beauty’s Ultra Repair Oatmeal Mask
It’s oatmeal to the rescue again with this Ultra Repair mask from First Aid Beauty. This mask brings intensive moisture to skin, instantly getting rid of that uncomfortable tight feeling you get when your skin is a little too dry. The great thing about this mask is that it’s free from all kinds of ingredients that set off sensitive skin, like artificial dyes and scents, mineral oil, ethanol, and plenty of other harmful additives.
In addition to colloidal oatmeal, this mask uses bisabolol and sea buckthorn to ease irritation. Shea butter locks in moisture, apricot kernel oil for fatty acids and vitamin E, green tea to combat inflammation and free radical damage, and vanilla extract for its antioxidants.
8. Golde Papaya Bright Exfoliating Face Mask
This exfoliating mask is packed with superfruits, and is something like a health smoothie for your face. It goes on a beautiful orange color, which is all part of the fun, and rinses off to reveal brighter, calmer skin. Perhaps the best part of this formula is the ingredient list, which is short, sweet, and totally edible. You get lucuma fruit powder for anti-aging vitamins, papaya for gentle exfoliation, sea buckthorn to rein in sebum production and reduce inflammation, and marshmallow root extract to promote moisture while lessening redness and irritation.
9. Yes to Cucumbers Cooling Jelly Mask
Skin in distress? Get out this best face mask for sensitive skin! It comes in a cooling jelly form, which is just about the best thing irritated skin has ever felt. With all the hydrating and calming ingredients, you’re sure to feel softer after each use. The only question that remains is: what are you going to do in the ten minutes it takes to transform your skin?
Cucumber is the most important soothing ingredient in here, but aloe lends a helping hand, too. Sugarcane extract exfoliates to allow a brighter complexion to shine through, willow bark tones, and licorice ease inflammation. Neem extract adds antiseptic, antifungal, and antibacterial properties to the mix, helping to keep skin clear day in and day out.
10. Drunk Elephant F Balm Electrolyte Waterfacial
Your skin needs electrolytes, too! With plenty of hydrating, skin-mantle-refreshing ingredients and lots of antioxidants, this Waterfacial mask takes excellent care of sensitive skin. This product also has the ability to repair some skin damage, and users say it leaves their skin feeling bouncy and renewed. Without essential oils, silicones, PEGs, and fragrances, this product won’t upset your skin’s delicate balance.
Fatty acids keep your skin’s moisture stores full, electrolytes act as both humectants and emollients while easing redness, and niacinamide provides extra anti-aging benefits. There are ceramides and squalane in this product for unequivocal moisture, plus antioxidant quercetin that is ideal for sensitive skin.
11. BioClarity Pore Purifier Clarifying Masque
Enlarged pores and excessive sebum production go hand-in-hand, and this clarifying mask for sensitive skin addresses both issues. Those with normal to oily skin will get the most out of using this mask, which fights off breakouts, shrinks pores, and improves the tone and texture of skin.
This formula is 100% vegan and made with ingredients labeled as “non-toxic,” which means you won’t experience any reactions when using this product. It all starts with floralux, a mixture of chlorophyll, copper, and antioxidants that’s great for skin issues like acne and redness. Tea tree provides anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial properties, aloe soothes sensitive skin, micro silver combats pimples, and oat kernel oil ensures a happy, well-moisturized complexion. This mask definitely gets the all clear!
12. Summer Fridays Jet Lag Mask
Spending a lot of time up in the air lately? Or is your skin just dehydrated and fatigued anyway? Try this mask from Summer Fridays. It works to calm down stressed out skin and replenish its stores of moisture, giving you relief that’s plane-ly (get it?) blissful. In a study of this product, 100% of users felt that this product hydrated their skin, and 97% felt their skin became softer and smoother.
Niacinamide, a form of vitamin B3, is included in this mask for its ability to even out your skin’s tone. Glycerin acts both as a humectant and emollient, ensuring thorough moisture. Hyaluronic acid plumps and smooths, and a blend of cucumber, allantoin, and bisabolol comfort your skin when it’s out of whack.
13. Dr. Brandt Hydro Biotic Recovery Sleeping Mask
This best face mask for sensitive skin takes the whole night to do its thing, ensuring that your face stays moisturized for up to three whole days. (Don’t use that as an excuse to skip your moisturizer, though!) It also performs well under pressure, meaning that it can calm down stressed-out skin and stop a reaction in the process.
We love that this formula contains yogurt powder, which softens and soothes skin, and honey for deep-down moisture. Rapeseed sterols work overtime to calm inflammation while shielding skin from damage, and rose flower hydrates. There are all kinds of emollients and humectants in here--glycerin, rooibos, and polypeptides, to name a few - so it’s great for those with dry skin or who live in a dry climate.
14. BYBI Super Greens Face Mask
If you feel like your pores are full of gunk that no cleanser or scrub can get at, it’s time to bring out this Super Greens Face Mask. With concentrated clarifying ingredients and a gentle formula, this mask is sure to give you a satisfying deep clean and leave your skin all the better for it.
Kaolin clay draws out impurities giving your pores grief, lactic acid provides mild exfoliation, and broccoli extract works with tea tree as an astringent. Then aloe soothes, tomato seed oil holds moisture in your skin, jojoba oil nourishes and hydrates, green tea fights inflammation and free radicals with a one-two punch, and bacillus ferment balances the skin’s microbiome. This mask is as good for your skin as it sounds!
15. Klur Supreme Seed Delicate Purifying Mask
Use this mask weekly to detoxify your skin while also preemptively calming to avoid a reaction to such a deep cleanse. This product is definitely going to bring out your inner glow, no matter how hard it has to work to get to that point. It uses kaolin clay for purifying, papaya extract, and malic acid for buffing off dead skin cells, elderflower as a calming astringent, and honeysuckle to soothe and brighten.
With two types of clay and several chemical exfoliants, this formula might sound drying, but it contains more than enough emollients and humectants to make up for it. Like gotu kola, ginkgo biloba, evening primrose oil, and rice bran oil. While this product is pricey for a face mask, it has a clean formula and a myriad of ingredients that are ideal for sensitive skin, so it’s a worthy investment!
16. Yensa Beauty Pumpkin Turmeric 2-in-1 Radiance Polishing Mask
A polish sounds harsh, but this one isn’t. The mask is loaded up with eight different orange superfoods to nourish skin to perfection, plus some gentle exfoliants that slough away all the old skin that doesn’t serve you anymore, leaving you with dewy skin. Ready for the eight orange ingredients? Pumpkin for nourishing and softening, turmeric for anti-inflammatory power and glow, papaya and grapefruit for exfoliating, ginger for anti-aging, carrot for moisture and protection, honey for hydration, and orange for evening out your skin tone.
There are all kinds of other wonderful botanicals in this formula, making it a great clean choice that won’t perturb your skin!
17. Glossier Moisturizing Moon Mask
This Moon Mask is what sweet dreams are made of. It’s ultra-hydrating, smoothing, and calming, alleviating all kinds of uncomfortable side effects of skin sensitivities while leaving skin softer and plumper. Natural emollients like shea butter and soybean oil ensure hydration, licorice and lemon improve your skin’s brightness, hyaluronic acid plumps, and honey works with aloe to placate sensitive skin. All you need is 20 minutes of calm and quiet to apply this mask and bliss out.
18. Milk Makeup Cannabis Hydrating Mask
Did you know that cannabis is one of the best natural skin-calming ingredients out there? Luckily for you, this mask (which comes in stick form like deodorant for convenient application) contains hemp oil for soothing and moisturizing, plus kaolin to suck out all the bad stuff, and aloe vera to de-puff and condition.
Rosemary leaf extract is an important ingredient for sensitive skin, and works with arnica to alleviate dryness, irritation, redness, and even rosacea. Sage heads off pimples, calendula ensures you won’t feel any discomfort, and glycerin brings moisture galore. The whole blend of ingredients makes a formula that is transformative for skin. That, plus the easy application, will certainly win you over!
19. Apto Skincare Healing Turmeric Mask
When you have sensitive skin, how your skin looks and feels on any given day is unpredictable. That’s where this mask comes in, helping you take some of the guesswork out of your days by ensuring that your skin is cool as a cucumber. It contains turmeric for its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, azelaic acid to remove dead skin cells, and all your favorite sensitive skincare ingredients like aloe vera, calendula, rosemary, and chamomile.
20. Innisfree Fermented Soybean Bio Cellulose Mask
Finally, one of the best face masks for sensitive skin that comes as a sheet! This one provides a cooling sensation upon contact with your face, letting you feel instant relief. In addition to soothing, this sheet mask also improves skin’s elasticity, boosts its moisture levels, reinforces the skin’s moisture mantle, smoothes, and brightens.
Those effects are partly thanks to soybeans from Jeju Island in Korea, which deliver antioxidants to skin while providing an optimized level of moisture. Castor oil takes care of wrinkles, dryness, and bacteria in one fell swoop, panthenol moisturizes, lotus detoxifies your pores, and prunus mume evens out your skin tone.
21. Topicals Like Butter
Here we have a best face mask for sensitive skin that really is smooth as butter… It contains colloidal oatmeal to counter redness and irritation, turmeric for anti-inflammatory power, camellia to prevent damage, and rhubarb to help treat atopic dermatitis or other skin issues. Then moisture comes in the form of shea butter, evening primrose oil, and glycerin. You apply the whipped-textured formula to your face like a moisturizer, wait 20 minutes, and rinse off to watch the magic happen.
22. Feel Mindful Palo Santo Soothing Mask
This soothing mask is like a meditation retreat for your face. It supports relaxation by, using lavender essential oil and niacinamide to calm, kaolin clay to renew, and mushroom extract to fight inflammation. Palo santo, the ingredient behind this product’s name, is the perfect antidote to troubled skin of every kind, giving you peace of… skin?
23. Kiehl’s Avocado Nourishing Hydration Mask
This mask is just about the closest you can come to playing with your food as an adult, and we’ll take it! The mask has a super satisfying texture that almost feels like putting guacamole all over your face, except it is less disgusting than the DIY version. Within just 15 minutes, you’ll feel that your skin is rehydrating, and within an hour your skin barrier will be strengthened and ready to support your skin’s balance. In addition to both avocado fruit and oil, this mask contains evening primrose, shea butter, glycerin, sunflower seed oil, and more.
24. Klairs Midnight Blue Calming Sheet Mask
With this calming sheet mask from Klairs, your skin will feel cool, relaxed, and fresh as a daisy. Unlike some sheet masks that hang heavy, this one fits snugly right on the skin, so if it weren’t for the immense relief you feel you might forget you were wearing anything at all. It calls upon the power of willow bark extract, Centella, glycerin, and allantoin, hydrating, clarifying, and soothing for as long as you choose to keep it on your skin.
25. Ole Henrikson Cold Plunge Pore Mask
Take the plunge and give this mask a shot at cleaning out your pores! It provides an invigorating cooling sensation, a gratifying cleanse, and some help managing excess oil. Since this formula is about as clean as it gets, it’s also safe on sensitive skin, although is best for those with oily or combination skin types. Clay acts as the purifier here, peppermint the refresher, and snow lotus works with willow herb extracts to condition and nourish. Meanwhile, a proprietary Green Complex ensures there is no irritation left behind.
