Copyright: marctran

When I was a child, I was always intrigued by my mother’s unusual skin cleansing routine, because it sure didn’t look like anything I saw on television commercials. She was very consistent about her routine, and it paid off because she always had fantastic skin. I never found out how she came up with her regimen, and to this day I wonder who told her about the bizarre mask she would apply each week.

My mother would begin her weekly mask regimen by removing her makeup with Pond’s Cold Cream. Then she would walk to the kitchen, grab a small Pyrex bowl, and combine about 1/4 cup of whole milk with 1/4 of corn starch, then apply the bizarre mask to her face and allow it to do its magic for10 minutes. It was always somewhat disturbing to look over at my mom every single night and see her face covered in the blotchy white mask, which would impart a spooky look to her face. By the time the mask dried, it always looked like a cracked and dessicated desert floor. My mom would then remove the mask with warm water and a round natural sponge, apply Clinique Clarifying Lotion Face Toner 2, and then apply moisturizer.

Many years later, when I began working in medical aesthetics, I learned about how cornstarch could control oil production in the skin. Since my mom had oily skin, she fought a constant battle against her skin’s own tendency to overproduce oil. When searching the internet, I was able to find cornstarch and milk mask recipes, but they all had additional ingredients like mashed strawberries or honey. The thought of putting dairy on my skin isn’t appealing at all to me for one reason, which is that I don’t like the smell of milk, so I won’t be making this mask for my own use. If I ever decide to explore the skin benefits of cornstarch, I will use water instead.