Can GlamGlow's popular mud mask really visibly clear pores?

• The GlamGlow Super Mud Clearing Treatment claims to visibly clear pores.
• Insider Producer Celia Skvaril decided to try it out and look at her pores under a microscope.
• She spoke to Dr. Muneeb Shah about his thoughts on the mask and why he thinks it is best for people without sensitive skin.

Following is transcript of the video:

Celia Skvaril: Today, I am trying the GlamGlow Supermud Clearing Treatment. It's been a cult favorite for years, because once it dries, you see all of these little black dots around your face, which are apparently your unclogged pores. Or are they? It's described as, "A clarifying mask with six exfoliating acids and activated charcoal to instantly and visibly clear pores and improve the complexion of normal, combination, and acne-prone skin."

Every single time I do this, I get scared. And every single time I am... I'm rightfully, rightfully scared, so. Hm. Oh, my God, what is that? You wanna watch a scary movie this year for Halloween? Here you go. It says to smear a thin layer on the face. So, I don't think tingling is the right word, but I also don't think burning is the right word, but it's definitely more burning than it is tingling. It's not bad, but it's not, like, amazing feeling. It's already starting to dry in some areas. There's no specific time limit, like, "Set your timer for 15 minutes" or something like that. It literally just says, "Wait until it's completely dry." June, come here. Look at her. Famous. Famous.

Roommate: OK. [laughs]

Celia: I think we are about as dry as we're gonna get. It's been about 25 minutes. I definitely have a lot of black dots. I have less than I expected on my cheek areas and more than I expected on my chin and my forehead. I feel like I actually have a lot there. Obviously I thought the nose was gonna be a gold mine, which it pretty much is. Oh, that really looks like a pore. These all look sort of like individual pores. It says just to wash it off with warm water, so let's head to the bathroom. My face is a little bit red, but it said that that might happen. To go over the results and see if this mask is actually doing what it says it's doing, I'm going to speak to dermatologist Dr. Shah to go over the microscope footage.

Muneeb Shah: It's been around for a while, right? Like, people have been using it, kinda loving it for a long time. So it's one of those things where I think people either love it or hate it. The reason why is 'cause it has really effective ingredients, but they're really strong and irritating ingredients. So I think a lot of people will get irritated from it, especially if you have sensitive skin. So, it's got this cocktail of exfoliating acids, like glycolic acid, I think it has lactic acid in it. Yeah, lactic acid, salicylic acid, mandelic acid. So, these are all amazing ingredients, but if you have sensitive skin, they're gonna be really strong, especially if you're using all of them together. But some people can tolerate it and they do really, really well with it.

Celia: You see all these little black dots show up all over your face. And I was always under the impression, like, "Oh, those are all my clogged pores coming out." And I feel like that's a really big pull to the product. Are those black dots actually your unclogged pores?

Shah: Probably not. It's probably somehow the material getting clumped up in it. You probably don't have that much stuff in your pores to start off with. And a lot of these things that have an immediate effect like that are just, like, the material clumping. But, you know, it has the clay in it that helps to kind of lift up impurities, or the activated charcoal that helps to lift up impurities. You can kind of see that yellow area there, pretty much, you know, oil, sebum that has built up in your pores over here. And sometimes those become oxidized, and they'll be like blackheads. Let's see the after. So, you can still see those things in the after, right?

Celia: Mm-hmm.

Shah: You see kind of all that sebaceous stuff in there. And you probably saw a lot of that stuff get lifted up. Is that right? Or what you thought, was it being lifted up?

Celia: It was, like, all over my nose, and then a lot on my forehead and my chin.

Shah: Always be skeptical of things that have that sort of effect. But I think that a lot of the ingredients in this are gonna be effective at minimizing the appearance of your pores. And so having that almost immediate appearance of an effect, where you see, like, "Oh, look, my pores look like they got cleared out by this thing," I think that encourages you to use it long term. And this is something that could potentially have a benefit long term. If you use this over probably three, four, five months, you probably would notice that those sebaceous plugs that you have here would minimize. But this is not gonna be after, like, one use type of thing. [laughing]

Roommate: Would you want me to hold her in the frame for you? Oh, God.

Celia: She's trying to eat the mask.