Antioxidant activity of hydrogen water mask pack composed of gel-type emulsion and hydrogen generation powder
Kwon HJ, Han SB, Park KW. · International Journal of Molecular Sciences. 2020;21(24):9731.
What kind of evidence is this?
Human
Four-week within-person split-face cosmetic comparison plus laboratory powder-characterization experiments
Skin, wound and aging research
Other forms
Not reported in this record.
Not reported in this record.
Methods at a glance
Twenty volunteers who passed a 24-hour patch safety screen; the full text does not report age or sex distribution.
Twenty participants applied the H₂-generating pack and a commercial comparison pack to opposite sides of the face.
Daily morning use for four weeks, assessed at baseline, two weeks and four weeks.
A gel mask containing 20% H₂-generation powder was mixed immediately before use and applied each morning for four weeks.
Locally generated H₂ in a topical gel mask — not Brown's gas, not inhaled and not H₂-rich drinking water.
Bench testing of 0.1 g powder in 100 mL water found preparation-dependent peaks up to 0.551 ppm H₂ after three hours. The H₂ concentration or release dose of the actual facial mask was not measured or reported.
Not applicable — topical mask; no H₂ flow was used or reported.
No O₂ was co-administered as a study gas.
A commercial mask applied to the opposite side of each participant's face; products differed in multiple ingredients and allocation/blinding were not described.
Outcomes and reported result
Facial moisture, sebum and ultrasound-derived skin density; pre-use irritation and microbiological/heavy-metal checks were also described.
At four weeks the H₂-mask side increased moisture by 34.63%, reduced sebum by 24.06% and increased skin density by 18.41%; corresponding reported comparator changes were 16.51%, a 9.55% sebum reduction and 9.93% greater density. The paper reports P<0.01 for selected within- and between-condition comparisons but does not provide a complete endpoint-level numerical table.
The complete free PMC article, figures, methods and disclosures were checked for participant number, split-face exposure, formulation, absence of applied H₂ dose, comparator composition, reported outcomes, funding and conflicts.
A reported association, difference or mechanism is not automatically a clinical benefit. Null findings, outcome type, study design and precision all matter.
Cautions and applicability
Small short cosmetic study, demographic details absent, unclear randomization/blinding, products with different ingredient mixtures, actual facial H₂ exposure unmeasured and mechanistic claims not directly tested. Korean public research grants funded the work; authors declared no conflict.
Short-term biophysical skin measurements in screened volunteers; it does not establish treatment of skin disease or isolate H₂ from the rest of the formulation.
Not reported in this record.
Not reported in this record.
Not reported in this record.
No single-study GRADE certainty rating is assigned. Certainty is assessed by important outcome across a complete eligible evidence set, not by attaching a final grade to one source.
Sources and record status
PMID: 33419292 · DOI: 10.3390/ijms21249731
Free full article in PubMed Central.
Complete PMC article and PubMed metadata; full-text extraction checked 9 August 2026.
2026-08-10