There was a genuine “hallelujah” moment when Mr AMR and I removed our Express Smoothing Eye Masks. Or I should say mask, singular. We only had one on each, because a) we both wanted to have a comparison “control” eye and b), these Shiseido masks are bloody expensive and I was feeling in a stingy mood!

Anyway, back to the hallelujah: never has an eye mask worked so well. On my eye (left one), all fine lines were totally smoothed out and the undereye area looked tighter and brighter, but didn’t have that horrible stretched feeling that some masks give you. As though you’ve applied washing-up liquid and left it to dry. Ugh, none of that. Great results.

But not as great as the difference on Mr AMR’s eye (right one, not that it matters), that quite literally looked as though it belonged to a different person! Mr AMR has a little tiny bit of creasey-ruggedness going on around the eyes, and I’m sure he won’t mind me mentioning that so long as I say that it’s the very Hollywood, handsome kind of creasey-ruggedness. Anyway, he does, and the Shiseido Benefiance Wrinkle-Resist 24 Pure Retinol Express Smoothing Eye Mask (longest product name ever? Probably not) gave him a completely different eye. Almost totally smooth, very de-puffed and with a significant decrease in – er – crease. We were both quite wowed.

I hadn’t really heard of these masks before – though I have tried many versions of the eye patch, see here – and so I went straight onto Google to see whether or not I was alone in my findings. Cue rave reviews on Makeup Alley, which only reaffirmed my belief that these Smoothing Eye Masks are the absolute bees knees. Terribly pricey, and the effects don’t really last more than a day (this is by no means a long-term anti-wrinkle solution!) but great if you have something important and jazzy to go to. (We were just off to Tesco, but still: you never know who you might meet. Shame that we only had one eye “done” each – next time I’ll push the boat out and give both a treat.)

More eye masks tried and tested…

Has anyone else tried these? I’d love to know how you got on. Unfortunately, the price of the Instant Treatment Masks is pretty prohibitive, really – I can never understand why beauty brands (and not just Shiseido, nearly all of them!) whack such enormous price tags on these eye patch/mask things. I think that all of the brands are missing a massive trick, because they could use the eye masks to win customers over to their everyday eye-care products – if you’re really impressed with an eye mask, wouldn’t you be tempted to try out the eye cream or serum from the same range? But the masks are just so expensive and I can’t imagine that a lot of people can justify splashing out on what amounts to so little, in terms of product quantity. Perhaps they are very costly to produce? I do wonder…

Anyway, mini-rant over: you can get 12 pairs of Shiseido masks for £59, making them around a fiver per pair. Find them here at House of Fraser. If you were looking for some pre-party quick-fixers, then these could be worth a go. I can imagine that makeup artists absolutely love them for pepping up tired models backstage and on photoshoots.