korean skincare regime

have i told you that in the past 2 weeks i was depressed due to my tesis progress? or no progress to be exact.. my professor was difficult to understand and moody. and he didn't give me any nodding for the proposal test. *sigh* and while i was depressed, i needed something to keep me sane, so i was reading about korean skincare. trust me when i said that stress really affected your skin. i had combination but more on oily side. i've been using loreal hydrafresh moisturizer icy gel for the third tube now, but sometimes the skin around my nose got flaky. i did use facial scrub, but somehow i noticed that my skin was dull and my freckles was increasing in number. *sigh* and i noticed that my foundation was heavy and sometimes cakey.. but i still had a lot left, so i had to finish it. though on daily basis i prefer my bodyshop bb cream. okay, back to skin care regime. i read a lot about korean skin care regime and i realized that probably i should put more consideration to spend more on my skincare regime than my makeup. recently, i postponed my elf and nyx haul because the dollar kept increasing. so, i got my eyes now on several korean skincare. now let's talk about the regime.

thanks to kpop wave, korean culture was widely known to the world. and the world now realized how smooth and delicate their skin! okay, probably their food and climate helped too, but korean were famous for their skincare regime. they put around 10-15 types of product on their face religiously everyday! i'm sure i didn't have the patience to put all that stuff, but i sure could put several more stuff on my face if it could improve my skin. i'm on the verge on age 30, so i had to put extra care for my skin. and probably more anti aging regime.

okay, usually here are the steps of their skincare regime:
1. cleanser: the famous terms of their cleansing routine was double cleansing. at first, they cleansed their face with makeup remover or face milk or face oil and then followed by another face wash or foam or soap. the extra cleansing was to make sure that all the dirt, pollution, makeup and everything else was washed away.
i had my eye on some cleansing oil and face wash:
innisfree apple juicy cleansing oil or the face shop oil specialist pore clean cleansing oil. for face wash, etude happy foam series or the face shop phytopowder charcoal facial wash (today i visited the face shop counter, and the face wash was huge compared to my bodyshop, no wonder it cost more).

2. toner: even though i had a combination/oily skin, toning my skin was important. i was using my toner as a part of my cleansing routine, but i found out that toner should be in the skincare rountine. i had be careful in reading the ingredient. i'd probably had to stay away from toner that contained alcohol. and the most important thing in applying toner was it was supposed to used max 10 seconds since you washed your face. probably i should put my toner in my bathroom.
the toner that i wanted to try: missha aqua pore clarifying toner, or the skin food sparkling apple toner. actually i wanted to try laneige, but in full size it was expensive *sigh* or probably i should try etude since it was cheaper, either malgeum fresh or wonder pore freshner.

3. essence/serum: probably this step was missing from western skincare routine. the difference between serum and essence was the consistency. essence was lighter and more like liquid in consistency, while serum was thicker. probably i should use essence in the morning and serum at night. both were aimed to treat spesific skin problems such as wrinkles, enlarged pores, dryness, etc. due to my oily skin, i was looking for something that suitable for oily skin and large pores, but i also wanted to start anti-aging treatment and whitening too.. they said that whitening was famous in korean because for asian, sun damaged our skin in forms of freckles. i never tanned, but i burnt easily. and i had freckles. so asian tend to use whitening products to prevent freckles and sunburnt.
for essence, i wanted to try missha first treatment essence or innisfree soybean energy essence (both were dupe for SK-II, and both were expensive T.T) or innisfree green persimmon pore essence, but i couldn't find any online shop that sold the last one. for serum, i wanted to try the infamous skin black sugar perfect first serum or peach sake pore serum. i read that the peach sake smell was quite strong, so i probably tried the black sugar.

4. emulsion/ moisturizer: both were similar, though some people differentiate emulsion and moisturizer. moisturizer was thicker in consistency than emulsion, and it was the last step to lock in hydration. probably for oily skin, many used only emulsion and skipped the moisturizer. but for dry skin, you'd probably wanted to use both.
for moisturizer, i wanted to try the face shop chia seed sebum control moist cream or laneige waterbank gel cream. well, laneige was expensive, but so did chia seed. probably one or two laneige products won't broke me.

5. eye treatment
okay, you had to understand that your around eye skin and your face skin was different so it needed special treatment. i had the bodyshop vit c eye cream and roller gel, so i wanted to try it first, though i read in some blogs that skinfood salmon eye brightening cream was great. probably if the vit c didn't suitable for me, i would try it.

6. lip treatment: this was important for me. i had dry lips. i wanted to buy lip scrub but i kept postponing it. and lip balm was number one. i was loyal to my bodyshop vit e lipbalm. i've tried the choco lip balm and lip butter, but vit e was better for me.

7. night regimen : mostly it was same as the morning regime, but you could change the moisturizer with night cream for extra hydration. i wanted to try either laneige waterbank sleeping pack or firming pack. it was their best seller.

8. extras:
a. sunscreen: okay, probably my freckles shown because i've been skipping sunscreen since i dumped my erha sunblock. so i just bought the faceshop natural aq sunscreen spf 50++ PA, and i will review it later.
b. mask: korean were crazy about face mask. they had face mask sheet, sleeping pack, wash off or peel off mask. recently i ordered innisfree jeju volcanic pore clay mask but the seller told me that they changed it into supervolcanic pore clay mask which was stronger, so i hope it was as good as jeju volcanic. i wanted to try it on my husband too, since he had bigger pores and more blackheads than me.

okay, i asked my sister to order some tester from testerkorea.com, but i haven't heard again from her, so i will tell you later which one i decided to try.

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