The Story
Sungod was created to feel like a gift to us humble humans from the sun god. It is for the souls who always crave sun rays, who worship the sun's power, and who, during dark winter months, dream about sun-washed beaches and cliffs. Sungod addresses our innate need for the sun and its literal and mysterious healing gifts. The sun nurtures, warms, dries what is damp, and banishes gloomy or depressed moods.
What goes hand-in-hand with a love for the sun, though, are the dangers of overexposure, from sun damage and premature signs of aging on the skin to the risk of skin cancer.
Our Sungod mask nurtures with sun-reminiscent and historically sun-associative botanicals (those with a correspondence to the third chakra in the body, the solar plexus), from sunflowers and calendulas to wildflower pollen and turmeric root, and it includes hard-studied anti-cancer plants (maitake and shiitake mushrooms, flower pollen, and goldenseal).
Benefits
This soft flower-dust of a mask rebuilds skin tissue that is compromised, damaged from environmental factors, sensitized, or unhealthy. The extraordinary range of nutrients in Sungod comes from roots, mushrooms, adaptogenic herbs, leaves, flowers, fruits, seeds, and mineral-rich Celtic salt.
This is not a face mask that offers a quick but ephemeral brightening or purifying effect. Botanicals with the ability to substantially improve skin health and radiance need to be given a proper chance, with frequent applications and time (at least a few weeks). The results you can expect are an improvement in chronic skin conditions such as eczema, psoriasis, acne, hyperpigmentation, and cold-sore outbreaks; as well as faster skin healing and improved elasticity, thickness, coloring, firmness, and resilience (such as a decrease in tendency toward scarring). Mature and dry or dehydrated skin will look revitalized, thicker, and better nourished.
Here are highlights about the key ingredients:
Wildflower pollen: Bees collect pollen from many flower species flowering at once, so each bit of pollen will have constituents from hundreds to thousands of flowering plants, from trees to herbs and wildflowers. Pollen contains amino acids, enzymes, rutin, phospholipids, vitamins, and minerals. It is antibacterial, antiviral, anti-tumor, and immune-boosting; it is protective against radiation, and it strengthens capillaries. We buy the freshest wildflower pollen from a trusted artisan beekeeper from California.
Calendula: This is Ava's number one skin-healing and skin-beauty plant, hands down. It helps bring every imaginable yet undesirable skin condition to a healthier state. We grow most of our organic calendula flowers ourselves. Whole flowers are air-dried in soft sun or semi-shade and stored away from light and excessive heat. For this mask we take the dry flower heads and laboriously separate the yellow petals from the green flower sepals, then we mill the petals into a fine powder.
Comfrey: An important herb for many Western herbalists and flower essence practitioners, comfrey's special gift is tissue regeneration (it is used in various preparations not limited to skin healing, from broken bones to head falls). Calendula and comfrey are also two of the most effective herbs to help skin that is highly sensitive to topical products and ingredients.
Goldenseal rhizome: The anti-acne component of this mask (along with the raw Celtic salt), goldenseal contributes antibacterial, antiviral, puffiness-reducing, and astringent properties. Goldenseal and turmeric also work together to help reduce hyperpigmentation.
Pomegranate: This superfruit supplies vitamins A, C, and E and aids in sun-damage repair.
No essential oils have been added. The mask is triple milled into a very fine, soft powder that turns creamy when you add water.
The Scent and Energetic Impact
The scent of this powder mask is sunny and flower-malty from the calendula flower petals, sweet and comforting from the sunflower petals, and a touch green yet smooth from the comfrey leaves. (Smell the prepared paste, not the powder.) With its collection of sun-associated ingredients, Sungod's energetic impact is brightening and strengthening as well.
Compare
If you are wondering which face mask is the right choice for you:
Sungod is a soft powder mask designed to gradually yet significantly improve the skin over time. With regular use it helps reduce signs of aging and heal scars, eczema, psoriasis, and discolorations. The powder, a blend of wildflower pollen, shiitake and maitake mushrooms, and calendula and sunflower petals, forms a smooth, creamy paste when mixed with water or another liquid. This mask contains no essential oils, but does contain a small amount of mild clay.
While Sungod is nurturing, our Catharsis Face Mask is cooling and extremely versatile. It offers visible, immediate results, and has an invigorating, slightly bitter and green scent from the algae, aloe, and neem. We particularly recommend Catharsis for acne-prone skin and as a spot-treatment mask for blemishes.
Our third powder-format mask, Imhotep's Balsam, is hydrating and nourishing, with a scent that is evocative of mystical temples and a cedar forest. We particularly recommend this mask for dry or sensitive skin.
Catharsis and Imhotep's Balsam are both vegan and do not contain clay, while Sungod contains humanely-gathered flower pollen and a small amount of mild clay.
My favorite Earthwise Beauty [product] by far is the Sungod Face Mask. It's a potent sunshine in a pot, perfect for the cold winter months.
- @casual.dreamer
Skin Types
For all skin types, especially mature, with signs of aging, with eczema, and acne-prone. Some individuals are allergic to flower pollen; patch test first.
Ingredients
Wildflower pollen, Solum fullonum (multani mitti, fuller's earth) clay†, Calendula officinalis (marigold) flower petals (organic or *), Aloe barbadensis leaf*, Helianthus annuus (sunflower) petals (organic or *), Plukenetia volubilis (sacha inchi) seed*, Hydrastis canadensis (goldenseal) rhizome (responsibly wildcrafted or *), Symphytum officinale (comfrey) leaf (wildcrafted or *), Punica granatum (pomegranate) fruit juice*, Grifola frondosa (maitake) mushroom (organic or *), Curcuma longa (turmeric) rhizome*, Withania somnifera (ashwagandha) root (organic or *), Lentinula edodes (shiitake) mushroom (organic or *), Celtic salt (France)†**.
*Certified organic. †Responsibly wildcrafted.
** Nature et Progres certified.
Certified cruelty free, handcrafted, small batch. Contains humanely gathered wildflower pollen collected by bees. Gluten free.
Directions
Measure out 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of the powder into a ceramic bowl and mix with a tiny amount of warm water to achieve a paste. Use your fingers to apply the paste in a thin, even layer onto washed, towel-dried skin, leave on for 10 to 30 minutes (mist periodically during rest time to prevent the mask from hardening, if you like), then rinse off. The mask can be used as often as desired.
Excellent as an in-the-shower mask, too. Add 1 to 4 drops of a facial oil or oil-based serum to the paste for a more nurturing treatment. Or add a bit of raw organic honey for an overall beautifying effect, or both the oil and the honey. Replace the warm water with a hydrosol of your choice or our Cistus and Moonlight Face Mist. Avoid inhaling the powder.
Full sizes 30 g/50 ml jar (1.1 oz), 20 g/30 ml jar (0.7 oz); travel/sample size 4.2 g/5 ml jar (0.15 oz). Assuming you use 1/2 teaspoon of Sungod at a time, the 0.7 oz jar will be enough for 15 or more applications, and the travel-size jar will be enough for about 3 applications.
Due to the very high cost of our ingredients and the labor-intensive (highly time consuming) small-batch production process, we are unable to accept returns of opened or unopened products at this time. But most products have a sample size option for purchase, so we encourage you to buy a sample first to ensure that the product suits your skin's needs and that you enjoy the texture, fragrance, and healing properties.
