The Omnilux Mask Makes You Look Like a Supervillain (with Excellent Skin)
Would you become a supervillain to reduce wrinkles, even out fine lines on your face, and lighten the dark circles under your eyes? Omnilux, makers of an LED phototherapy mask that instantly makes the wearer look like a maniacal Marvel movie bad guy, think the answer is an unequivocal yes. The mask’s look, which you may have already seen flooding your social media pages advertising spots, harkens to the cheap overpromise of products sold on QVC decades back. But Omnilux’s secret, if you can call it that, is that there’s not much new about it. Here’s what a $400 LED mask can (and can’t) do for your skin.
What Is the Omnilux Men LED Mask? How Does It Work?
Though it looks like a newfangled skincare product made by sleazy salespeople for chumps like me, it turns out Omnilux has been making LED phototherapy devices to tackle a wide array of skin maladies for decades—its products were simply stuck in the offices of dermatologists and aestheticians rather than in the homes of regular people.
LED phototherapy is the fancy pants term for the process and science behind Omnilux Men’s red-light therapeutics. Clinical and aesthetic applications of this technology are, again, not new. Medical professionals started using LED phototherapy in the 1990s, and supportive research quickly followed, identifying a slew of effective uses for the new treatment method. It was found to be an effective application against some forms of acne, wound healing, skin ulcers, post-operation recovery, psoriasis, and, yes, skin rejuvenation (1, 2, 3).
How does Omnilux work? The short-and-sweet version is as follows: LED light (red light and near-infrared, in this case) fired at specific wavelengths trigger your skin cells to snap to attention and begin working to reduce inflammation and stimulate collagen and elastin production, which is meant to rejuvenate tired skin. Omnilux masks are FDA-approved for safety as well.
What’s Good About the Omnilux LED Mask?
Skin improved with use (and time)
I’m lucky not to be incredibly self-conscious about my skin, but I will admit to staring at the darkening circles under my eyes and clearly deepening forehead wrinkle appearing above my brow for longer than is healthy. While my attempts to intimidate the obvious and natural signs of skin aging failed, I can comfortably say the Omnilux did not—though it’s not all sunshine and rainbows, either.
It can be a challenge to see how your skin has improved (or not) without months to years of dedication to whatever skincare routine or product you’ve adopted. And though I certainly still have dark circles under my eyes and fine lines on my forehead developing along my scowl’s path, both have been, according to my partner, visibly relieved after three months of regular use.
Truthfully, it’s difficult for me to really know how true that is, but my facial skin does feel significantly better across the board. I’ve noticed it gets dry or irritated less often, and it definitely appears brighter (especially immediately after a 10-minute Omnilux session).
The short version: if you use Omnilux as often as recommended over an extended period of time (at least a few months, by my experience) you will likely see some improvement. That said, don’t expect the device to de-age decades of life off your face after a few sessions with it.
Easy to fold into skincare regimen
Though the mask looks genuinely silly while worn, it’s both lightweight and unobtrusive (I can’t believe I’m typing this) enough to wear while doing chores around the house, finishing up work, or relaxing on the sofa. The mask is always attached to a corded battery unit that you can slip in your pocket while it’s running, so you’re not bound to sitting by an outlet (though a cordless version would certainly be preferable). I found this made regularly using the Omnilux—which requires regular use to produce results—easy enough.
The only times I felt like using the mask was a chore, or interfered with my routine, was when I left my mask session until too late in the evening, near when I hit the hay. The lights are bearable when your eyes and mind are awake in the morning, afternoon, and early evening, but I found they often frazzled me when worn too near my usual bedtime.
One-time purchase
This may sound asinine, and maybe it is, but boy is it refreshing to buy a skincare product that I only have to buy once. If you’ve ever developed an interest in skincare (or bore the brunt of your partner’s skincare obsession), you know how monumentally expensive the creams, masks, serums, and washes can be.
The Omnilux Men LED mask is $395, which means it will inevitably be laughed out of the room by a healthy number of guys, but it is $395 spent once. Mercifully, there is no subscription-based payment program to keep the thing running, either. Compare this price to the cost of going to a dermatologist or esthetician for an LED phototherapy session and it’ll seem like a steal.
What’s Not Good About Omnilux LED Mask?
Strangely difficult to put on
For $395, I expected the mask to gently float above my soon-to-be baby face and whisper sweet nothings into my ears. Instead, putting it on reminded me of playing catcher when I was 12 (de-aging at work?). The two straps tighten around the top of your head and below your earline with simple back-looping Velcro endings, but in order to get it on you have to undo and re-attach the Velcro without being able to see straps (unless you have eyes in the side of your skull). In a true embrace of the superhero movie bad guy aesthetic, I even tried to attach the mask while looking in the mirror, which only revealed my brain isn’t cut out for applying straps behind my head while viewing everything in reverse. This led to consistently bristling prickly Velcro against my head, and a failure to get the mask to fit the same way every phototherapy session. Dealbreaker? No. Needlessly frustrating? Yes.
Casually blinding at times
When I mentioned the red and near-infrared lights of the mask could be a bit bright, especially if you leave your session for the end of a long day, I meant it. The first time I tried to use the Omnilux mask, it was just shy of 11pm and my eyes were exhausted from a long day of staring at computer screens. I slipped the mask over my head, plugged it into its battery unit, hit the power button, and immediately squeezed my eyes shut. The light was overwhelmingly bright. I put it down for the night to try the next morning with a cup of coffee—it felt totally fine.
There are two lessons here. The first being you need to make sure the mask is fitted properly, with your eyes as aligned with the eyeholes as possible and the mask tight enough while not suffocating you.
The Bottom Line
For $395, you get a product backed by decades of red- and infrared light research. The technology built into this product is, unequivocally, not bogus. That said, it requires dedication to see results, and as with all skincare products, your mileage will vary based on your expectations for the product. I don’t look 25 again, but I do feel my skin is healthier than when I started using Omnilux three months ago.
References
1. Opel, Daniel R. et al (2015). Light-emitting Diodes. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4479368/
2. Ablon, Glynis (2018). Phototherapy with Light Emitting Diodes: Treating a Broad Range of Medical and Aesthetic Conditions in Dermatology. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29552272/
3. Ngoc, Le Thi Nhu et al (2022). Utilization of light-emitting diodes for skin therapy: Systematic review and meta-analysis. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36310510/
