Montagne Jeunesse Masks Review: Manuka Honey Peel Off and Creamy Coconut

Montagne Jeunesse are a cult UK brand that I hadn’t noticed in Australian stores til recently. They do fun masks with natural ingredients – kind of like a longer lasting, less fresh Lush. Even if you’ve never heard of them, you might recognise their distinctive, Carmen Miranda-ish fruit-on-head packaging:

I picked up the Creamy Coconut and Manuka Honey Peel Off masks at an event a couple of months ago, and brought them with me to Europe to test.

I was really curious about the Manuka Honey Peel Off mask. I’ve had a peel-off mask done during a facial, so I really wanted to see what it would be like at home – this was very different from my facial experience though. That one solidified into a thick rubbery jelly-like material, but this peel-off mask is PVA-based, which means it peels off like the PVA glue you might have played with in school. Out of the packet, it looks and smells like thick, floral honey. There’s 10 mL in a pack, which translates to 2-4 applications depending on how you do it (more on this in a sec) – at $3.99 a pack that’s $1-2 per application.

Ingredients: Aqua (Purified water), Polyvinyl alcohol, PVP, PPG-1-PEG-9 lauryl glycol ether, Parfum (Fragrance), Propylene glycol, Xanthan gum (Natural thickener), Caprylyl glycol, Caramel, Miel (Honey), Aloe barbadensis (Aloe vera) leaf extract, Sorbitol, Aesculus hippocastanum (Horse chestnut) seed extract, Anthemis nobilis (Chamomile)flower extract, Vanilla planifolia(Vanilla) fruit extract, Jasminum officinale(Jasmine)flower extract, Phenoxyethanol, CI 19140 (Yellow 5), CI 14700 (Red 4)

The mask takes about 5-10 minutes to dry, at which point you can peel it off, horror movie style like so:

Excuse my frizzy hair!

While it’s pretty entertaining to peel PVA off all of your face, the problem is that the PVA tends to grab onto all of the tiny hairs on your skin. I don’t have much hair on my face, and I have pretty robust skin, but peeling this mask off was pretty painful. My skin did feel lovely and soft afterwards (honey, aloe vera and sorbitol are great humectants, and pulling off my dead cells would’ve helped), and I did end up with a freaky map of my face pores:

Check them out! I think it pulled out some sebaceous filaments. It’s not as harsh as a pore strip, but I’m in no hurry to do it again.

PVA is water soluble though, so alternatively you can soak the mask off, which also means you can use a bit less product for each application. I tried using it in the shower, but while I ended up with amazingly plump skin afterwards, it dribbled into my eyes (though it thankfully doesn’t sting).

The Creamy Coconut mask is clay-based with lots of plumping humectant glycerin, and smoothing emollients like shea butter. It’s a 15 mL pack and has enough for 3-4 masks, so at $3.99 that’s $1-1.33 per application. The mask itself has the texture of a thick lotion and smells pleasantly of coconut.

Ingredients: Aqua (Purified water), Kaolin, Bentonite, Glycerin, Cetearyl olivate, Sorbitan olivate, Butyrospermum parkii (Shea butter), Cetyl palmitate, Theobroma cacao (Cocoa) seed butter, Cocos nucifera (Coconut) water, Sorbitan palmitate, Glucose, Parfum (Fragrance), Citric acid, Coumarin, Glucose oxidase, Lactoperoxidase 

I was really impressed with this mask! It’s good at both hydrating my skin and softening the rough patches, and I felt no irritation whatsoever.

I really like these masks – they’re easy to use, have really nice moisturising qualities and they’re pretty affordable, especially if you buy an 80 mL “tottle” for $8.99 (though it’s still a significant markup from UK prices). I’ll be trying out more of the range for sure – their hydrating masks (Very Berry, Strawberry Souffle, Damask Rose) sound very nourishing, and I’m curious to see how their clay masks perform on my oily areas.

You can buy Montagne Jeunesse masks from Priceline, supermarkets and selected pharmacies.

These product were provided for editorial consideration, which did not affect my opinion. For more information, see Disclosure Policy.