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Bendable red light therapy masks walked so that the hard shell masks could run. Though I can't shut up about how much I loved my experience with the Shark CryoGlow despite its bulky, not-bendy-at-all construction, it felt important to go back to the roots of red light and try one of the OGs: The CurrentBody mask. After all, that one and the OmniLux mask were making its rounds on my TikTok FYP far before the Shark mask ever did.
As a skincare enthusiast whose main concern at 31 is not only fine lines, but acne that is 100 times worse at 31 than it ever was at 13, it didn't take long for me to wonder whether red light masks really work or not. I'm down for Botox or microneedling here and there, but they're both expensive habits to stay on top of — so I decided to see how far I could stretch those in-office sessions by relying solely on daily LED mask usage. I used the Shark CryoGlow mask and CurrentBody mask in separate periods of at least eight weeks each.
I had an overall smoother daily experience with one of the masks, and my skin made it quite apparent which mask it needed as a staple in my routine. Here are my thoughts on whether you should buy the Shark CryoGlow or CurrentBody LED mask, based on my own journey and results.
Note: This review specifically features the CurrentBody Skin: Series 2 mask.
Shark CryoGlow vs. CurrentBody: Bulbs and nanometer measurement
After hearing that the CurrentBody Skin mask is more expensive than the Shark CryoGlow mask (by more than $100), you'd naturally assume that the CurrentBody is more powerful. But you'd be off.
While the CurrentBody mask does have more LED bulbs on paper (237 versus the Shark's 160), none of the bulbs in the CurrentBody Skin mask are blue light bulbs. They're red and near infrared only, and not every bulb in the CurrentBody mask can emit both red and NIR (near infrared) light. There are 110 red light bulbs (633nm) and 110 NIR bulbs (830nm), plus 16 deep NIR bulbs (1,072nm) around the eyes and mouth for extra fine line attention. An upgrade from the original version of the CurrentBody mask, the Series 2 has an added chin strap to extend coverage to the jawline and maybe a tiny bit of the upper neck.
Meanwhile, the Shark mask has red (630nm), near infrared (830nm), and blue light bulbs (415nm), and every single bulb can emit any of those wavelengths at the same time. That technically totals 480 simultaneous light sources inside the Shark mask, ensuring that more of your face is being hit by any of the wavelengths. The nm (nanometer) number is a unit of measurement for each wavelength. Both masks hit the standard red light and NIR nanometer measurement generally considered "strong" enough to produce any type of at-home results. The Shark CryoGlow mask doesn't do deep near infrared at all, but remember that the CurrentBody only has 16 of those.
To add blue light to your existing CurrentBody routine, you'd have to buy the $469.99 Anti-Acne mask separately. That's nearly $1,000 compared to the CryoGlow's $349.99 price tag. So, there's that.
In more scientific terms, red light masks are often given an irradiance measurement, or a measurement of power density at the source of the LED. All of the tri-wick bulbs packed into the CryoGlow bring it to a maximum irradiance of 128mW/cm², while the CurrentBody mask maxes out at 30mW/cm² of the Omnilux.
There is one area of the face where the CurrentBody's coverage dominates: the under eyes. The CryoGlow mask doesn't have any LEDs under the eye holes, instead using the space for cooling pads that mimic a cryotherapy de-puffing effect. They do feel amazing when you're half awake in the morning, but the results only last for a few minutes. The under-eyes are universally one of the most stubborn spots to treat with over-the-counter skincare, so an at-home red light mask could very well be someone's last-ditch effort before paying for a legit procedure. So while the CurrentBody might speak to you more if your main skincare goal is long-term reduction of dark circles or eye bags, I think the Shark's blue light option and tri-wick bulb situation gets more for your money overall.
Winner: Shark
Shark CryoGlow vs. CurrentBody: Settings and remote
This is where Shark really starts to pull ahead of CurrentBody. If you're dually concerned about fine lines and texture as well as acne, the CryoGlow is overwhelmingly the better mask.
Both masks have remotes that are attached to the mask via a cord. However, I'm not exactly sure why CurrentBody didn't just go wireless and move the remote's lone "on" button to the mask itself. It's not like the mask can do anything else but simply be on — there's just a single fixed red light and infrared setting. I understand that this is probably in the name of simplicity, but it's painfully basic to me.
It almost feels unfair to compare it to the Shark CryoGlow remote, which features a small LCD screen and a wheel to adjust cooling pad temperature and pan between three modes: Better Aging (red and infrared light), Blemish Repair (all three wavelengths in varying combinations), and Skin Sustain (all three wavelengths at the same time). Once you've chosen a setting, the screen counts down how much time you have left in your session.
That lineup is going to be much more palatable to anyone who has more than one skincare concern. Personally, I desperately wanted to try an at-home LED mask for its potential mitigation of the acne that just randomly started showing up in my late 20s — but my late 20s also brought along the onset of fine forehead and smile lines, and I also wanted my makeup to stop caking in those. The Shark mask has an answer for both of those, and I love that the remote gives me the freedom to let me choose what I want to target on any given day. The CurrentBody's lack of customization is genuinely kind of shocking for the price, and felt like a downgrade after such a premium experience with the Shark for several months before it.
Shark's settings also take slightly less time than CurrentBody's: The three Shark settings take four, six, or eight minutes, while the only CurrentBody setting takes 10 minutes. It's not a huge difference in terms of the tasks you'll be able to get done during Mask Time, but again, it's still nice to be able to gauge how many minutes are left. And while the CryoGlow's battery life is much shorter, you can at least gauge the timing before your next charge with the battery icon on the screen. When the CurrentBody mask is dead, it simply won't turn on.
Winner: Shark
Shark CryoGlow vs. CurrentBody: Design and daily wearability
From the outside, it's just a given that you'll look ridiculous while wearing any red light mask. The Shark CryoGlow is giving Jason Voorhees, while the CurrentBody Skin is more so embodying Dwight Schrute when he cuts the face off of a CPR dummy. I don't mind looking funny either way as long as a mask is physically comfortable to wear. FWIW, neither mask is unbearably heavy at all. The Shark CryoGlow is a little heavier — a bit over a pound, compared to the CurrentBody at less than a pound.
Both masks have adjustable straps, but the Shark mask's sliding adjusters (similar to the back of a baseball cap) are a much more seamless process. CurrentBody has way too many intersections of velcro, including The Big Strap that needs to be done and undone on the back of your head each time you wear it. It's just begging to get stuck in your hair, and it made me miss the simplicity of slipping the CryoGlow on and off.
The presence of a shirt/pants clip on both remotes implies that you should be able to roam the house while wearing the mask hands-free. Right? While you obviously can't expect to see perfectly out of any LED mask, I find the Shark CryoGlow to be much easier to wear than the CurrentBody Skin. When the lights are on, the CurrentBody mask is just... so much more in your face when it's on your face. The lights around the eyes are borderline blinding, so much so that anything you can see outside of the red glowy haze is tinted blue.
To be fair, the CryoGlow mask isn't unnoticeable while it's on, either. The shell is so thick that I have to hold my hands out annoyingly far in front of me to see what I'm doing. But I can still somewhat get stuff done while wearing the CryoGlow, like feed the cats or make my bed, whereas the CurrentBody Skin feels too trippy to do anything but sit on my phone. If you don't have a squirrel brain like I do, you may not mind having to zone out for a second — a CurrentBody mask owner on Reddit actually mentioned that they appreciate being forced to lie down for 10 minutes a day.
The interior of the masks are also slightly different materials. The inside of the Shark is your classic slippery plastic that can be wiped down super easily for sanitation purposes. The inside of the CurrentBody mask, which touches your face directly, has a stickier silicone-y material that weirds me out. A ton of cat hair and fuzzies get stuck to it, too.
Winner: Shark
Shark CryoGlow vs. CurrentBody: Results
In my experience, the Shark CryoGlow mask works much better than the CurrentBody mask.
I got my skin into pretty amazing shape after about three months of daily CryoGlow usage. Before that, I was struggling hard to get my acne under control — it felt like a new pimple was popping up every single day. When I was consistently switching between the Shark mask's acne setting and "Better Aging" setting, I was going at least a week without a new pimple popping up.
When I switched to testing the CurrentBody Skin mask, I obviously had to put the CryoGlow on pause to isolate the CurrentBody results. The CryoGlow mask works so well on acne that I was terrified to give up that blue light setting — and my fear came true.
During my CurrentBody Skin testing period, it felt like I lost a lot of the skin-clearing progress I made. Take my CryoGlow "after" photo from the right above and use it as my CurrentBody "before" photo. Below is the current status of my chin after two months of strict CurrentBody mask usage. I have one whitehead that's desperate to pop, plus red spots from recently-healed zits.
My skin was considerably more unpredictable when I was using the CurrentBody than it was with the Shark mask, with fresh pimples consistently setting up camp on my chin and cheeks a few times per week. Granted, this is still less erratic than my acne cycle before testing either of the masks.
Since the CurrentBody Skin doesn't have blue light, I knew it wasn't going to kill pore-clogging bacteria like the CryoGlow can. But red light can still be on the defense against acne — it's said to promote the regeneration of skin cells, aid with inflammation, and maybe even help to prevent scarring from current acne. I'm super prone to post-inflammatory erythema (red spots that stay behind where a pimple used to be) that lasts for months, and I don't even feel like the CurrentBody did much to fade or prevent that.
It's not that I think the CurrentBody Skin mask did absolutely nothing. My skin held up a consistent glow and smooth-enough texture to go out bare-faced during my time with the CurrentBody, though the fine lines on my forehead and around my eyes are definitely still present. I haven't gotten Botox in my forehead for months, and I was hoping the CurrentBody would make me want to hold off on making a touch-up appointment (it didn't). And given how stark other people's CurrentBody results seem to be on social media, I expected my skin to even out much more than it did.
Winner: Shark
Shark CryoGlow vs. CurrentBody: Portability and packability
I'm terrified to go a week without the CryoGlow's acne setting. That's a testament to how reliably it prevents deep pimples from popping up on my face, but also a reminder of how deeply unfortunate it is that the CryoGlow would be ridiculously inconvenient to travel with.
It's not that the Shark mask weighs that much, but it's a big, bulky hunk of plastic that doesn't bend at all. It'd just take up an awkward amount of space in a suitcase, especially if you're a heavy packer and really need to consolidate for a plane ride. The Currentbody's build isn't nearly as unforgiving. It's physically thinner and flexible enough to be packed in with clothes without hogging a ton of cargo space. At any rate, both do come with a drawstring travel or storage pouch.
The CryoGlow's short battery life would also make it annoying to take on a trip. It needs to be charged every few days if you use it daily, while the CurrentBody mask's battery life barely even needs to be charged once per week.
Winner: CurrentBody
Shark CryoGlow vs. CurrentBody: Our winner
The Shark CryoGlow mask is irrefutably a more well-rounded LED mask than the CurrentBody mask, as well as a better value price-wise. Based on how easy it's been to incorporate the mask into my daily routine and the results I've grown to expect from each, I genuinely look forward to wearing the Shark — while wearing the CurrentBody sometimes feels like a chore.
Despite being the more compact mask, the CurrentBody Skin is more cumbersome to wear. The red lights glow so uncomfortably bright near your eyes that it's hard to see much of anything while wearing it.
The CurrentBody Skin's lack of adjustable settings just feels so basic compared to the customization made possible by the CryoGlow remote's intuitive LCD screen. I'm sure I'm not the only 30-something person out there who's dealing with age-related fine lines and adult acne — and between these two masks, the Shark CryoGlow is the only one with dedicated red light, blue light, and near infrared combinations to target multiple skin concerns. The CurrentBody may appeal to you more if your sole goal is anti-aging around the eyes, but again, my under eye and crows feet results were barely noticeable. I'm telling someone to choose the Shark CryoGlow mask every time.
