I majorly avoided bubble packs when they were taking over the beauty-sphere. Elizavecca’s Piggy Bubble pack dominated reviews, and I honestly didn’t see the appeal. I was lumping them into the same category as baking powder facial scrubs (wrongly), and I figured my pores didn’t need that much excavation work to clean them. Cue a couple of years later and having to wear a face mask every waking moment, the temperature hiking considerably, and I’m ready to take my words back. My pores are clogging at an alarming rate even without me wearing makeup, and I need help. So when Sunduk Jeju CARRABIOMEX Pore Tightening ReBalance Fresh Bubble Pack landed on my doorstep from PR, I was very interested. Let’s see how I liked it.

Ingredients in Sunduk Jeju Carrabiomex Rebalance Fresh Bubble Pack:

The star ingredient in this Carrabiomex Pore Tightening ReBalance Fresh Bubble Pack is Jeju Carrots. Jeju is a volcanic island situated below the Korean peninsula, and many Korean Beauty brands produce products with ingredients from it. Sunduk claims that Jeju Carrots contain Amazon Natural Clay, and thus this Carrabiomex Fresh Bubble Pack can deeply clean excess sebum and dead skin from pores.

Carrots?

Carrots have some great benefits for our skin when applied topically – usually via carrot root extract. They are packed full of antioxidants to help fight free radicals that can damage your skin barrier, and help with inflammation; they have Vitamin C and Vitamin A; also carrots are a natural antiseptic. Finally, carrot root has moisturising properties – which I shall come back to in a second.

Amazon / Amazonian Clay

I’ve been interested in trying Amazon or Amazonian clay masks for a while, but just never really got round to adding one to cart. I’ve seen the rave reviews and wanted to try it out for myself, but those tubs are large and they don’t really do sample sizes…

Clay is a great ingredient for detoxifying your skin. It helps to draw out oils and impurities from the skin’s surface, and help unclog those pores. They’re often marketed towards oily and acne-prone, but clays that contain hydrating ingredients such as glycerin or sodium hyaluronate can really help with dry skin.

So combining the moisturising properties of Carrot Root Extract with the Amazon Natural Clay, this mask will help deeply clean pores and add extra moisture.

My concerns going in:

The bubbles. I have sensitive skin, and bubbles… that form… when the product… touches your skin… sounded like something I should avoid at all costs. I’ve seen the videos of the Elizavecca product tests where people were adamant their skin burned, and I’ve seen the web page of the aztec clay mask that actively encourages the burn. I don’t like products that feel like they’re burning thank you very much. So I was a little apprehensive to try.

But.

The product directions for the Sunduk Carrabiomex Pore Tightening Rebalance Fresh Bubble pack say to rinse thoroughly when bubbles are formed – and these bubbles form fast. So at the maximum I’d have the product on my face for maybe two minutes maximum.

Directions for use are as follows:

1. Apply the product as if you are mass[aging the face].
2. When bubbles are formed, rinse thoroughly with lukewarm water
3. If left unattended for a long time, it may cause irritation to the skin, so rinse immediately after bubbles are formed.

My thoughts on the Sunduk Jeju Carrabiomex Pore Tightening ReBalance Fresh Bubble Pack

Packaging is nice, if a little messy. The product comes in tubes (12 in each box) and you have to squeeze the product out of the tube. It’s kind of like a skincare frube. Whilst I understand that this is a lot easier for managing the amount of product per use, it is a little fraught getting it from the tube onto the face for even distribution. There is a spatula included in each box to help with dispersing the product around the face, which is a nice touch.

Once it’s on the skin, the product activates instantly, and soft bubbles are formed. The Sunduk Jeju Carrabiomex Pore Tightening Rebalance Fresh Bubble Pack starts out a dark, carrot orange, and it quickly changes colour to a lighter orange, so you can tell when to wash it off.

Unlike other clay masks that you leave on for longer, this one is really easy to rinse off with water. It works with both lukewarm and cool equally well, so if you’re pressed for time you’re not going to be left with product in your baby hairs or caught around your nose.

My skin didn’t feel tight at all after use, which was another concern I had before trying this pack. Foaming and bubbling agents can be quite abrasive towards sensitive skin (hi, it me), but I didn’t feel any burning, tightness or irritation. Quite the opposite. My skin felt smooth and soft after washing off the product, and I could see that some of the clogged pores I had had become unplugged from their gunk.

On the pore tightening front, we all know that you can’t actually tighten your pores. You can’t shrink them, or remove them, they’re there and they stay the same size. But you can reduce their appearance by clearing them out, which this bubble pack does effectively, without stripping the skin of its natural oils. It also adds back any moisture lost with the Carrot Root Extract.

As bubble packs go, I don’t have a point of reference, but I’m happy with the results from using this Sunduk Jeju Carrabiomex Pore Tightening Rebalance Fresh Bubble Pack. I’ve noticed that the area covered by my mask (and thus subjected to gross, moisture filled breath-air, and lack of breatheability) seem to be doing better on the surface level spot front since I’ve incorporated this into my routine, and it’s playing nicely with other products in my current rotation so far. I think as we’re getting into the hotter, sweatier months here in Seoul, I’ll be reaching for this once a week to help with exfoliation.

Have you tried bubble packs before? What are your thoughts on them? Were you put off by all of the hype around Elizavecca like me? Let me know what you think of this one in the comments!