I used this little beauty of a mask when I was in Hamburg. I have done lots of flying recently and so I needed something high-powered to really get the moisture back into my skin. I had a modelling shoot for a German magazine called Freundin – I’ve worked for them quite a few times over the years, and I like to look my best for them! So, out of the emergency modelling skincare bag came…the Shu Uemura Red:juvenus Elasto-Vitalizing Stretchable Mask. Or, if you prefer a shorter name, it can be referred to as “The Skin I Live In”.

If you haven’t seen The Skin I Live In then you must. It’s pretty dark – directed by Pedro Almodóvar and starring Antonio Banderas, it’s about a really quite grotty little scenario involving plastic surgery, genitals and a rape that never happened. Anyway, check out my picture above and please compare to the picture below:

All I need is Antonio peering over my shoulder! Which, to be blunt, would have scared the crap out of me had it happened, as I was all on my ownsome in a Hamburg hotel. Also, old Tone looks a bit scary in the photo, I’m not sure I would have enjoyed him being in such close proximity. Especially knowing what he did to the poor person in the film….make sure you add it to your watch list! It’s a shocker..

Back to the mask. It’s brilliant! Saturated in about a litre of serum, so it’s not the easiest thing to get out of the packet. Mine slipped around all over the place, but I got Tony Banderas to hold onto one side whilst I positioned the other and got the eye holes in the right place. Once the eye holes were correct, the rest was a cinch. I thought that I’d have to lie down and wear it otherwise it’d fall off, but it stuck firmly to my skin, almost by suction, I suppose, because the serum isn’t at all sticky.

I felt like calling room service or something, but then realised that my hotel had neither a telephone in the room or room service (the two tend to go hand in hand) and so I had to make do with tweeting pictures and pretending that I had called room service, which was a total hoot. (Tumbleweed.)

I kept the mask on for about twenty-five minutes because it felt like a waste just to leave it on for ten. There was a cooling, slight tingling sensation for the first minute or so, and after that it was just extremely pleasant. I could actually feel my skin drinking up the moisture and the life returning to my face. I swear that this mask would cure the worst hangover – it would be great if you could get a full body version!

A full body version, you say? Well…. It kind of is, in a strange way. Because the mask is so saturated with product, there’s about 95% of it leftover when you take the mask away from the skin. You can literally squeeze the serum out and into your hand! I had enough to massage into my entire body and (is this gross?) I used the mask itself to wipe over my neck, feet and hands! Actually, that’s not gross, is it? Because my face was clean.. Anyway, you really can turn this mask into a full-body treatment. It would be a criminal offence just to chuck the mask into the bin with all of that miracle product leftover!

There’s 25ml of red:juvenus product soaked into every mask, so no wonder there’s so much leftover at the end! I must surely have read that wrong – that’s like half a full-size bottle of moisturiser! No, it definitely says 25ml. You get six masks in a pack (6x25ml) and the pack costs £56.

These masks are well worth the dosh – I shall be purchasing a full set, as I just had a one-off sample mask. Single-use masks are perfect for people who travel a lot as they take up virtually no space, yet it’s like having a full facial in one hit! Also great for models who feel like their skin is a bit ropey and they’re off to an important shoot or casting – the makeup artist on my Freundin shoot was overjoyed at how radiant my skin looked when I walked in, and the other model straight away wanted to know what I had done to my face!

Red:juvenus masks are available from Selfridges stores.