Ten. Dimethylsilanol hyaluronate, hydrolyzed hyaluronic acid, hydrolyzed sodium hyaluronate, hyaluronic acid, potassium hyaluronate, sodium hyaluronate, hydroxypropyltrimonium hyaluronate, sodium hyaluronate crosspolymer, sodium hyaluronate dimethylsilanol, sodium acetylated hyaluronate: ten forms of the same molecule at ten molecular weights and salts, listed in a run from thirty-fifth to forty-seventh of forty-eight ingredients, so that the pouch can say ten and the brand's page can say the skin is fully recharged with them. Korean brands have competed on hyaluronate counts for the better part of a decade, and the counting has a grain of truth in it, since small forms and large forms do behave differently on skin; but a run of ten at the tail is a label device, and the plump this mask gives comes from the top of its list, which is where a hydrating sheet should be read.
The top of the list is the range's shared base, and it is a good one. Glycerin at second, butylene glycol at fourth, methylpropanediol, propanediol and betaine at sixteenth are the humectants that pull water into the surface layer while the carrageenan and carob gum hydrogel, set with glucomannan and potassium chloride, holds it against the skin for the half hour the sheet takes to thin from opaque to transparent, the colour change the pouch calls technology and physics calls water leaving a gel. Niacinamide at fifth is the range's quiet active, contributing barrier-lipid support that helps the hydration hold a little longer; allantoin at fifteenth and panthenol at thirty-fourth keep it comfortable; aloe flower, eggplant, ivy gourd, holy basil, coralline algae and turmeric extracts are the botanical tail; and the preservative set of hexanediol, hydroxyacetophenone and ethylhexylglycerin carries no fragrance, alcohol or colourant. Coconut oil at third is the range's odd choice, there for slip and a little emollience, and it is the ingredient acne-prone and fungal-acne-prone skin should weigh before buying five.
On the face it does the hydrating variant's job properly. The two jelly pieces are slippery for a minute and then cling without dripping, the first ten minutes are cool, and when the gel has gone clear the face beneath is plumper, dewier and smoother, with fine dehydration lines around the eyes and mouth visibly softened for the evening; dry skin notices the difference most, on a winter afternoon or after a flight, and combination and oily skin get a lighter, cleaner plump than a cream mask allows. The essence is faintly slick from the hyaluronates and pats in, and here the mask's one instruction matters more than with any other variant: a moisturiser over the top is what keeps the water in, and a humectant sheet left unsealed evaporates over the evening and can leave skin drier by morning than it started. Sealed, the plump lasts until bed; unsealed, it lasts until dinner. Sensitive skin registers no scent and no sting, and nothing accumulates from a sheet at any frequency, because a sheet is a session and not a treatment.
A word on when to use it, since a hydrating sheet is a tool with a season. The half hour under the gel is most valuable when the air is driest, on a heated winter evening, after a long flight, or the night before an event when skin has gone dull and tight, and it is nearly wasted in humid summer weather when skin is already holding water; the cica variant in the same range is the summer sheet, and this is the winter one. Used the night after a retinoid or an acid it also buffers the dryness those leave behind, which is the one use where it earns a place in a routine rather than a drawer.
The hyaluronates deserve a fair sentence rather than a dismissal. Low-molecular forms like the hydrolysates and the dimethylsilanol salts do reach the upper stratum corneum and hydrate there, large forms like the linear sodium hyaluronate and the crosspolymer film the surface and slow evaporation, and the cationic hydroxypropyltrimonium form clings to skin protein and survives a rinse; the multi-weight idea has a clinical literature, and a 2011 Journal of Drugs in Dermatology study found that low-molecular hyaluronan creams outperformed high-molecular ones on skin hydration and wrinkle depth over eight weeks. What that literature does not support is ten forms at trace positions in a half-hour sheet outperforming a well-dosed glycerin base, and the plump here is the glycerin's. With no published testing and no verifiable review count in the range's eighteen months of US sale, the list and the known behaviour of hydrogel masks are what this assessment stands on.
Three dollars a sheet is the bottom of the hydrogel market, and the value is excellent for a fragrance-free, alcohol-free mask with a strong humectant base and niacinamide at a real position; the ten hyaluronates cost nothing and add little, the coconut oil is the one thing to watch, and the moisturiser afterwards is not optional. Dry, dehydrated, winter-worn and travel-tired skin will get a good evening from it, sensitive skin can use it without worry, and anyone keeping a drawer of cheap sheets for the cold months has found the hydrating one; acne-prone skin should test a sheet, and anyone expecting a count of ten to mean lasting hydration should read the top of the list instead. Ten hyaluronates on the pouch, one good plump in the sheet, and a cream over it to keep it.
