What Happens If You Put Placenta on Your Face?
by Jaya Saxena and Jazmine Hughes
“It’s, like, gooey.”
“Yeah, dude, that’s the placenta.”
After the incredible success of our first foray into the placenta-powered world, Jaya Saxena and Jazmine Hughes decided to go one further. We learned that putting placenta in our hair made it a little bit softer and smell slightly of cornchips (which men LOVE) — what would happen if we put it on our faces? Enter the Placenta & Collagen Premium Facial Mask Pack, available on the well-known site Amazon.com for as little as $5.95.
Here is the only information that the Amazon listing gives:
– Placenta & collagen mask pack with placentl liquid will give you a fantastic beautiful treatment
— Also gives your tired skin moisturizing effect and beauty effect
— Our placenta & collagen mask pack contains green tea, aloe, licorice, seaweeds extracts and so on.
Green tea! Aloe! Licorice! Placenta! All things that sound very chill and normal to put on your face. We were excited! Then we read some reviews:
I just apply the mask after I wash my face then apply the mask and keep it on for about 15–20 minutes, rub in the juices lol
It comes drenched in the baby sheep juice,so as long as you seal it up and don’t leave it sitting out in the air, it will stay moist.
Helpful and gross! It is far better to just stick to the official company description.
Undeterred, we opened the masks — Jaya was right; they were, indeed, incredibly gooey, and it was at that moment we realized what we were putting (placenta, if you forgot) onto our beautiful faces. We put on our masks and looked at each other. “You look like you’re a robot trying to convince someone they are, in fact, a real human.” “You look like Hannibal Lecter.”
Here’s how it went.
JAYA:
My skin gets a lot of dry patches in the winter, no matter how much moisturizer I seem to slather on, so I was hoping that the mask would help. Almost immediately my face started tingling, which I assume is all the little stem cells burrowing their way into my skin and making me look younger. I mean, this is the same stuff all the royals were taking baths in in Jupiter Ascending, right? A movie you definitely saw?
It was very difficult to talk/drink the giant can of Arizona Iced Tea I was thirsting for the whole time, but I was feeling my look, and the cold/tingling sensation was really pleasant. You’re not supposed to wash your face once you take it off, so I patted off the excess goop and found my skin felt the softest and those dry patches were gone, and everything felt plump and healthy. It was sort of remarkable! My husband even said my forehead felt extra soft that night! We caress foreheads a lot, it’s a married thing, you wouldn’t understand.
JAZMINE:
I’ve never done a tissue mask before, just clay masks and scrubs, so I was very happy to get a quick glance into the life of glamorous fashionista and beauty czar Haley Bertha Mlotek and try one on myself. The embedded photo shows me very casually walking around my apartment in a face mask and a flannel shirt looking not unlike a serial killer, which is a photo I highly suggest texting your boyfriend in the middle of his work day. Jaya put hers on about ten minutes before I did, because I was eating, and after I placed my mask on my face, I continued eating, which I do not recommend. This is my advice to you: If you attempt to eat potato chips while wearing a placenta face mask, you will eat placenta covered potato chips. You have been warned. But also: ATTENTION MAKERS OF TISSUE FACE MASKS — CAN YOU MAKE THE HOLE A LITTLE BIGGER? I’M TRYING TO EAT HERE. THANK YOU.
I have pretty oily skin, so I steamed, washed, and moisturized my face right before we started. I left my mask on for about 30 minutes. About ten minutes in, I started to feel a tingly sensation, and considered very briefly that I might have an allergic reaction to placenta (??) and I could die, or worse, break out into a ton of zits, all in the name of gross-out journalism. Jaya would have to call my parents and my boyfriend and tell them I died trying to moisturize my face. Could you imagine?
Anyway I took it off after half an hour because I was very very hungry; it was still very drippy around my chin area but had dried a bit in my cheeks and forehead. It still came off easily; there was no residual dirt or anything on the mask. My face felt really soft, and like something had happened to it, but that’s…it? I was sort of expecting a baby to appear on my face, but no dice. My skin remained smooth into the evening, and took makeup a little better than usual that night.
FINAL PLACENTA VERDICT: Would you use again?
Jaya: When I woke up my skin was pretty soft, but not that much softer than times I’ve exfoliated and used a really expensive moisturizer. But wearing a cotton ghost mask is just so much more fun than that, and so much easier than a clay mask or something that gets all dry and craggy. Still, at $6 a mask, I’ll probably keep this to a once-whenever-Jazmine-orders-them thing. All in all though, I definitely learned that we should all rub our faces on placenta for eternal youth!!!
Jazmine: The back of the package says that you should use the mask two to three times a week “and you will see a remarkable difference,” which I think means you have to use it two to three times a week in order to have a baby appear on your face. One use did make my skin noticeably smoother, but I doubt I’ll add this into my regular routine because who has $12-$18 to spend on placenta masks every week?! This is cheaper than a facelift (maybe???), so perhaps I will get back into them when I am forty and worrying about my neck.
Jaya Saxena is the Jazmine Hughes of Queens. Jazmine Hughes is the Jaya Saxena of Brooklyn.