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Best LED Face Masks for 2025
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At CNET, we’re a big fan of the brand Therabody and their massage guns. The brand also sells an LED face mask with particularly impressive specs: It contains both near-infrared and red light for anti-aging and skin brightening effects, but also has a blue light mode to target acne.
It’s also one of the most powerful on the list, with an irradiance of 64 mW/cm2 and higher, depending on which light you’re looking at. Another bonus: It vibrates for a mild face-massage effect.
For people who battle acne and want a little glow boost, the TheraFace is a powerful choice.
Depending on your preference, a con of the TheraFace could be that it’s hard and bulky compared to other LED face masks that are made of silicone. And while the mask is loose enough to allow for air (and easy to take off), it doesn’t have a mouth or nose hole, which may provide a more claustrophobic feeling for those prone to have one.
Therabody says it comes with two treatment settings: 3 minutes for a quick glow-up, or you can choose the full 9-minute setting for what the company calls “clinically-backed results.”
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The CurrentBody LED face mask is a great option for those seeking professional-grade skincare treatments from home. This mask offers a combination of red, infrared and near-infrared light therapies to address multiple skin concerns like fine lines, wrinkles, acne and uneven skin tone.
The red light stimulates collagen production, the infrared firms, tightens and brightens the skin and the near infrared targets areas where aging signs are more pronounced, like wrinkles.
It has an adjustable strap and a lightweight design, which will make it comfortable for most people to wear for the 10-minute sessions. I also appreciate that this masks covers the area under your chin, which I haven’t seen from most other brands.
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Omnilux Clear is similar to the Omnilux Contour in design: It’s a comfortable, flexible silicone mask that comes with a power cord you carry around with you. The Omnilux Clear is different, though, in that it’s specifically designed for people with acne. The Clear is packed with 415nm blue and 633nm red light wavelengths.
Because it doesn’t contain the near-infrared and red light combo like Omnilux’s other masks, the Clear is specifically marketed toward teenagers 14 and older and adults with mild or moderate acne. Blue light has anti-bacterial properties, targeting one of acne’s causes. Also, because blue light can make people’s eyes more sensitive than red light, Omnilux said they’ve included a bit of eye protection built into the Clear mask.
At $395, it’s the same price as the Clear’s anti-aging cousin, the Contour.
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Similar to the TheraFace, this mask by Dr. Dennis Gross contains both red and near-infrared light, as well as blue light for a range of uses. Treatment time is just 3 minutes, which makes sense given its relatively high irradiance (60 mW/cm2); like other high irradiance devices, a little goes a long way, and you don’t want to overstay the mask’s welcome on your face as it can start to heat up.
Dr. Gross is a well-known dermatologist in the New York City area, and his DRx SpectraLite Faceware Pro may be one of the coolest and prettiest looking on the market. It’s not silicone and flexible like some LED masks, but unlike the TheraFace, it has holes for your nose and mouth and conforms more to your actual face.
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Omnilux, riffing off their wildly popular Omnilux Contour Face mask, has come out with a mask for men.
No, light therapy is gender-dependent. But Omnilux said it created this mask for men because men’s skin is a little thicker, so they included an extra-deep wavelength (1072nm near-infrared) to get under that thick skin.
Whether or not this really matters remains to be seen, but I did find the mask for men much roomier, making it suitable for larger faces or features. It also has a different pattern than the Contour. In terms of treatment time, it’s the same drill: 10 minutes, and you hold the cord.
I will take this time to address one small scare I had during my entire testing of the Omnilux face masks, which turned out to be a lesson in reading the fine print. I’d been using red light therapy masks while laying down as part of a nice, little meditative routine. But one day with the Omnilux mask for men, I had my eyes wide open while reading a political article for the duration of the 10-minute treatment. After taking off the mask, roughly 20 minutes later, I started to feel symptoms of what I’ve assumed in the past to be an ocular migraine. My vision felt slightly distorted, like I could still see but through a slightly watery filter.
I won’t lie, I freaked out a little. While I knew that Omnilux’s products were FDA cleared and red light is safe when used as directed near the eyes for most people (there’s even some research suggesting red light can benefit eye health), I didn’t read the fine print of contraindications for using the Omnilux mask, which warns people prone to light-induced headaches, among other conditions, including ones that make you more sensitive to light, some skin conditions and genetic eye conditions.
My vision came back completely normal within the hour, as it has the handful of other times I’ve had symptoms of a migraine brought on most often by changes in light, or something really similar that temporarily distorts my vision than makes me very tired and gives me a headache.
I have continued to use the Omnilux Contour mask (I have zero clue if the extra-deep wavelength in the men’s mask had anything to do with it), but with my eyes completely closed and after exposing them to other sources of light so it’s not as abrupt an adjustment from complete dark to red light. This is strictly my choice, though. If you also get light-induced headaches or are otherwise sensitive, ask your doctor before trying an LED face mask. Also, check the list of contraindications and safety instructions before buying and using any light therapy mask. You can also buy eye protection to wear with your mask if your eyes are particularly sensitive.
If you’d like to target sagging skin or are interested in anti-aging effects, you should look for an LED mask with appropriate wavelengths of red and near-infrared light (about 633nm and 830nm, respectively).
