How Gravitymud ruined my skin
A couple of months ago, Glamglow released their blue Gravitymud, Sonic the Hedgehog themed in Europe. So of course I ordered it from the ICI PARIS XL website. Stored it in a cool and dry environment the way you should, because I knew I wasn’t using it ‘till Charlotte would come to visit, because she also wanted to try it.
Last Friday afternoon, October 20, we decided to have fun with.
Initially, it was a really good mask. I had bought a mask brush at H&M, which had been thoroughly and properly cleaned (as you should do with all new brushes) and the mask applied easily and evenly. It smelled nice, it felt nice. We had looked up the manual, so to speak, so we knew for sure we were doing everything right.
After nearly 30 minutes we peeled it off, washed the left overs of our faces with lukewarm water, made sure our faces were 100% clean, all was well. We both had one zit, and figured it meant the mask had done its job getting the gunk out of our skin, left it at that and continued our day having fun.
The next day, I woke up with my skin feeling itchy. I initially thought it was because I had gone to bed quite late and had to get up at 6.30am because Charlotte left an hour later. I didn’t properly look in the mirror before she left, and oh boy. The entire area where I had used the mask was irritated. It itched quite a bit and just felt mank in general.
At that point I figured it was irritated, so hoped that a good moisturizer would do the trick and continued skin care as I usually would (for those curious, I use an Yves Rocher cleansing gel, TonyMoly’s moisture gel cream and then Weleda’s almond face cream, I’ve been using all of these for months and unless I use a lot of heavy bodypaint a few days on end, I never have issues with my skin).
The next day, Sunday, I woke up and my skin had gotten WORSE.
Now, on a Sunday (and a Saturday in fact) in Belgium it is really hard to see a doctor. I would have had to go to the emergency doctor, or the ER, and it wasn’t bad enough to warrant either. My own family doctor had given me a prescription in case something would happen to my skin (because I am allergic to methyl, buthyl and ethyl paraben, neither which are listed as ingredients on the package) so I decided to file that the next day with the pharmacy (in reality Bert did because he was kind enough to offer).
In the meantime I kept using products I knew would at least properly moisturize and hydrate my skin.
Which did fuck all, because on Monday, my skin was still WORSE.
It literally felt like sandpaper to the touch, as if there were a million little spikes right underneath my skin. And it didn’t just feel like that to the touch (I didn’t scratch or rub my skin, but I do touch it when I put cream on, obviously!).
That was also the day where I started using prescription tablets to counter the allergic reaction, meaning that I got mega sleepy and drowsy, and had to miss out on class because they made me too tired to function.
Tuesday, my skin was mega red and swollen, on top of the itching, pulling and sore feeling. I had to go to physical therapy, and I can assure you, people noticed it. So I had to reassure them that no, it wasn’t anything contagious, it was an allergic reaction to Glamglow’s Gravitymud. As you can imagine, this did not incline people to ever try the product. I didn’t go out of my way to tell people what happened, but when I noticed their obvious worry of catching something, or when they asked what happened to my face, I did honestly tell them.
I had tweeted about the situation every day since the weekend, and this is the day that Glamglow decided to get in touch on twitter. First they publicly left an empty message saying how sorry they were and that I should email them at a certain address where they would provided assistance asap.
I emailed said address, only to receive a message a few hours later, telling me there were delivery issues to said address.
I had also left a message on their Instagram account, where they also told me to email that same address.
On twitter, I rather publicly pointed out that the address had issues, and asked if they could please provide me with a working one.
To which they responded by sending me a private message asking for my contact details, to which I provided them with both my email address and my land line phone number (and made sure to tell them I’m on GMT+1 to avoid being woken in the middle of the night). They said thank you and that they would be in touch directly, for which I thanked them in turn.
Guess what, they never got in touch…
So I guess the word directly means nothing to them…
I figured that they might have mailed me during the night (time difference between the US and Belgium after all) but when I woke up today: nothing.
Not in the spam either, because I actually check that folder.
At this point it’s past 1pm, and still nothing. I did go out for a few hours because I had to do things I could not avoid (in total zombie mode because of the meds) but even then they could have just sent an email.
I can only conclude they’ll tell you they’ll be in touch, but in reality, Glamglow could NOT care less.
And you know what, I’m just a girl online with not that many followers, so I’m easy to ignore for a big company. But one day this shit will happen to one of their huge influencers or bloggers, and shit will hit the fan. And then things won’t be so easy to ignore. Food for thought Glamglow, food for thought.
And this is what my face looks today…
Everyone that has looked at a photo on this blog that contains my face (and there’s a lot of those on here) knows that that is FAR from what my face looks normally. Also: I don’t wear foundation or use heavy photoshop on photos, so what you see is what you get!
So no, I am not impressed with this product, as it is frankly point blank dangerous. I know there are a LOT of people out there that use this product and are very happy with it. But keep this in mind: if this is what it did to me, what is it doing to your body and skin on a long term basis? It’s a question worth pondering in my honest opinion.
That said, for completeness and honesty’s sake.
I have dry skin leaning to normal (it’s normal in summer) with no issues as long as I properly use my skin care, so there is absolutely no reason that this should have happened, if it weren’t for there clearly being something dodgy in the ingredients. I can only wonder what is in there that is NOT listed on the box.
FIY, according to EU law, a company is not legally obliged to list ingredients under a certain amount, so it’s not because there’s no crap on the box, that there’s no crap in there, of which my face is currently living proof. Alas.
I will continue to update this post as things progress.