My Sunday night routine wouldn't be complete without a sheet mask and pint of gelato, but I'm often frustrated that this ubiquitous beauty ritual leaves me immobilized. When I move, most masks slip and slide, so they leave me on bed rest for the 15 or 20 minutes I keep them on. Eating Caribbean Coconut (sponsor me, Talenti) while lying comatose on a pile of comforters is never a cute look.
Georgia Louise, the Upper East Side esthetician behind that viral "Penis Facial" beloved by Ocean's 8 stars Cate Blanchett and Sandra Bullock, just launched a headphone-looking doohickey that not only sends currents through sheet masks to help the serums penetrate deeper, but also keeps the dang mask in place so you don't have to stay still while wearing them.
I was initially drawn to the look of the GloPulse ($165) because the device resembles the $10 Sony headphones I used with my portable CD player from the years 2005 to 2009. It's to be used with corresponding new sheet masks ($20 for a set of three) that target dry skin, fine lines, and blemishes, respectively. Louise told me that the device works with said masks to help the serums and beneficial ingredients penetrate deeper into skin, and she was kind enough to give a hat tip to her penis facial in her explanation of everything works.
"When you massage a serum in, you only get like 10 or 15 percent through your dermis," she said. "The rest of it goes away. Like with making a baby, you hope that the sperm goes to the egg. With your skin, you hope that the key active ingredients gets to the dermis. So this was created out of a need to penetrate key actives into your skin."
One of Louise's in-office facials will set you back $650 (aka rent for some people), so the pro decided to create a slightly more affordable way to achieve the same results at home. "The point of this is for people who can't afford to get professional facials once a month," said said. "It's a place for a busy mom or a working millennial to do something at home. They can take a piece of me with them."
Meghan Markle got to wear a 10-diamond tiara on her wedding day, so I asked Louise's PR rep to place the GloPulse on my head as if it were my own crown. (Thanks, Irissa, for letting me have that moment). As she affixed the device over my sheet mask, I was nervous I might feel some sort of current — or worse, get shocked. I was surprised to feel actually nothing as we let the GloPulse do its thing for 20 minutes. I stopped many times to make Louise check to see if it was for sure working. She assured me it was. But shouldn't I feel some sort of tingling?
"It's subsensory," Louise said. "I'd rather see results than feel them happening as painful or irritating. It's about being less aggressive but being more effective and deep." She added that if you put the probes on your cheekbones sans mask, you might feel a little bit of tingling. That's where the masks come in — those puppies create a barrier that ensures even someone like me with ultrasensitive skin can bare the treatment.
While wearing the device, I got up, ran around the spa, leaned over to check out a meme Sandra Bullock texted Louise (casual) — and my mask stayed put. Gone are the days of lying so still in my sheet mask like a thousand-year-old mummy in a sarcophagus. What's more, it left my skin soft, supple, bright — you'd never know I inhale approximately five pounds of gelato per night.
