Prepare yourselves for today’s rambling train of thought. Are you sitting comfortably? Do you have a notebook and pencil? A cup of tea? A Jaffa Cake? (Yes, it must be a Jaffa Cake, they’re the only biscuit-stroke-cake that is permitted. You may have two.)

“I’m off out for dinner and my skin is looking a little bit jaded. Probably because I’ve just made it sit through thirteen hours (straight) of video editing and I couldn’t be bothered to fetch my glasses. I’ve been straining and squinting and frowning, and all of the colour has drained out of my face. I have also eaten a naughty number of Jaffa Cakes and drunk too much Diet Coke. Despite trying to balance this out with Detox Tea (Dr Stuart’s, amazing) I look a little bit…grey.

What can I do to perk my skin up a bit? I need it to be smooth, fresh and bright. It feels a bit bumpy and rough. I’ll tell you how I feel about it: I feel as though I want to gently rub a brillo pad over it, or a bit of sandpaper, and just kind of polish it up a bit. Like you would with an old table-top. Like at school when you used to have to sand off all the graffiti and scratched bits from your desk lid and clean up the ink-well cover that was bent downwards so that you couldn’t slide it backwards and forwards really fast to make a racket…

Sorry! Where was I? Sandpaper. No, I won’t sandpaper my face. I was going to reach for my trusty Liz Earle Brightening mask, which I have mentioned a zillion times (haven’t I?) but I have just spotted the latest little package to have arrived at my desk, the GlamGlow Mud Mask.

Nice little jar. And a little bit of info. Let’s have a read. Ha! Nina Dobrev, lead actress in the Vampire Diaries says “GlamGlow is my new best friend.” Dear God woman! I know that Hollywood stars find it difficult to ‘connect’ with others sometimes, but a little jar? Your best friend? Where do you go together? Does it get its own seat? Does it speak? Does it share waxing tips with you over a bottle of wine?

I jest of course! I have no idea who Nina Dobrev even is! God bless her and her posh-lidded little friend. (Sorry Nina, I had your name wrong before but I have now corrected it. I shall watch Vampire Diaries as penance. I’m sure you have incredible skin.)

Hold on a sec – Tommy Lee, Rocker, oh – sorry, Rockstar, is IN LOVE WITH IT! “I am in love with it” he says. (My italics, not his.) “It feels so refreshing and gives U a refreshing glow at the end.” Urm…I’m sorry? “U”? Did Tommy text his quote in to GlamGlow? If so, surely it should read “it fls so refrshin + givs U a refrshin glo at the end x x x”

I digress. For about the seventieth time. I’ll tell you some important stuff now: Designed for Hollywood’s Entertainment, Music, Fashion and Award industries for camera-ready soft glowing skin. Dredged off the coast of Southern France, home to glamorous Cannes, St. Tropez and Monaco. GLAMGLOW is an amazing rapid gentle exfoliant mud mask for men and women, high in ancient volcanic pumice rock, super antioxidants and minerals. GLAMGLOW’s moisturizing collagen synthesis is for the face, neck and décolleté. Nice. I like the sound of this. By the looks of it from my search on t’internet, it has a bit of a cult following. Let’s slather this baby on!

Hold on though, let’s not be too hasty – it’s not an enormous jar by any means, so let’s not slather, let’s smooth and pat. Smooth and pat, that’s the way. Smells nice! Smells absolutely delicious as a matter of fact. It’s extremely grainy, a bit like a microfoliant or a very effective scrub. But I’m not really massaging it in, I’m smoothing it on, so I’m getting a bit of a ‘scrubby’ feel, but nothing too serious. It’s a rather fetching shade of sludge green, and there are flakes of something stuck in there that are starting to show up as the mask dries, which is fast. Oh! They’re real pieces of green tea leaf! What the heck will they do then? ‘Nothing’ is what I have my money on.

It really tingles! Nice. It’s drying into a mask and I literally cannot move my face.

[DING DONG!]

Holy crap, that’s the doorbell. It’s Amazon. It’s my camcorder auxiliary light and I need it. Can I answer the door in an Umbro tracksuit (don’t ask) and a face of clay? YES I CAN.

“Delivery for Crilly.”

“Hnnnn.”

“What?”

“Mm.”

“Is that you then?”

“Mm-hhuu.”

“Sign here then.”

[Shut door.]

That was interesting. I literally could not move my face to speak! How bizarre-yet-fun-yet-ultimately-embarrassing!

Oh well! I have my light! What’s going on with this mask? It’s definitely tingle-tastic. Victoria Health claim that it “Illuminates, smoothes, softens, exfoliates, brightens and moisturises for noticeably super radiant skin.” It had better do, because I have just ruined my already rocky relationship with the Evening Amazon Man.

[15 minutes interlude where I mess about with my new light. Feel free to have a loo-break, make another tea, do some power lunges.]

My face is now set solid as a rock-face. If my life depended on it, I couldn’t pull a facial expression out of the bag. So I’m in good company – most of Hollywood, in fact. Time to have a little rinse! I’m using warm water and a flannel. A white flannel, which is probably a little ill-advised. It’s going to look like a newborn’s nappy by the time I’ve finished!

A little warm water splashed onto the mask and it’s beginning to loosen a little (and breathe) so I am taking the opportunity to massage the grainy bits in a little bit, give myself a gentle bit of exfoliation. The flannel is doing a great job of wetting/massaging/removing and I can thoroughly recommend the use of one for GlamGlow removal!

How’s my skin? I can categorically say that it looks incredible. After all of my joking about I am utterly speechless. It’s a completely different texture – smooth, soft and bump-less. It’s brighter – slightly lighter, I think, if that’s possible? It doesn’t feel dry or tight, it doesn’t feel oily on the T-Zone, it doesn’t feel irritated. I am gobsmacked.

I wish that I had popped something on my eye area now, because I have been left with the face of a twenty year old and the eyes of an eighty year old. Rather incongruous to say the least!

WOW.

I am impressed. Have I said that? This stuff is très expensive but amazing. I perhaps wouldn’t use it if I had very sensitive skin – although there aren’t any nasties in the formula the gritty texture and intensive nature of the treatment (fast exfoliation) might be a little too much for faces that tend to react. I’m speculating here, obviously, as I don’t have very sensitive skin, but if I did, I’d try and do a little patch test.

Overall, I’m very, very impressed. Can you tell that? The GlamGlow mask sells for £69 at Victoria Health. That’s for a 50ml jar, so…quite steep. But well worth it, I think. One generous application used up about a tenth of a jar (by my rough estimation) and so each treatment would be around £7. That’s generous usage. For a result that’s actually right up there with some pretty thorough facials I’ve had, I don’t think that the price-per-use is inflated whatsoever.

Oooh! I got all serious towards the end there! Can I just finish by giving a little quote for GlamGlow?

Ruth Crilly, (Model, Writer, Puller of Facial Expressions) “GlamGlow is bloody amazing. It’s my new adopted child. I love it with all my heart.”

The first and last sentences are true.”

**UPDATE: FeelUnique.com sell this mask for £49.99 with free worldwide delivery**