Obsessed with Asian/Korean stuff - taking your skincare to the next level!

[FrugalFashionista]

Asian and Korean skincare products seem to be a big thing in skincare and beauty right now.

Interested in the following?

• finding a great sunscreen
• tailoring a multi-step ritual to your skincare needs
• talking about geisha beauty rituals
• learning what snail slime, bee venom and starfish have to do with beauty
• plumping up your skin with sheet masks and sleeping masks
• experimenting with essences

Please come here and share your questions, experiences, links and best shopping tips!

I thought Id look at all my bb creams and didn't realise I had so many .Heres a photo of them all. Anyone else want to share their stuff?

I have just made my first Korean purchase! The Mishha BB that is on the right of Vegan's pic.

I am so excited I could squeal.

Vegan, that's an impressive stash of bb creams! I used to have loads of stuff like that. Atm though I have one Max Factor foundation

Frugal, I'll post any good finding sheet recipes I find, every website I open atm is crashing my phone so I'll get the tablet out later on & have a google

good finding = good sounding. Taken me a few mins to realise that wasn't right

vegan I have ordered one of the petit bb creams. I'm not sure why as I have never worn foundation and have been put off by bb creams have tried say from superdrug. Anyhoo, I liked the rave reviews. It was a hit on Makeup Alley and that's always a determiner for me.
I have just got a lacura ( aldi) factor 50 kids sunscreen. it also gets very, very good reviews. It cost £2.49. it doesn't feel greasy either.
I am pissed off about the cystic spots which have appeared over the last week.
frugal thanks. I understood from caroline hirons that the acid stage after cleansing was to bring the skin's PH back down. yet according to the Asian pear blog thing ( can't remember name) the ph has to be at a normal rate in order for the acids to be effective.
Or you can wash, wait 20 mins and then use c serum. Then again I have also read that you are supposed to bring your skin back to its normal PH immediately after washing or you you might implode, or something.
CH suggests the order is cleanse, acid tone, serums/actives/moisture etc.The Asian idea seems to be that c serum does not count as a normal serum but an active and therefore must go onto bare skin, so before any AHA's etc. AGHHHHHHH!

OK then, so vit c should never be applied directly before or after using acid toners?

big, would you mind linking the EDS site you mentioned yesterday? I am not very good at googling & have scrolled through a lot of illness related websites looking for it

VeganCow loving your reviews - Lioele sounds really fab!!! Loving your product shelf! I went to Muji yesterday to buy an acrylic organizer to sort out my lipsticks to that I could dedicate a shelf to my Korean stuff.

Sangria hope you'll like it! Sharing a link of this fabulous blog - it's in Italian (but most posts have an English translation). Great shop reviews and Italy-specific delivery and customs information. And the makeup is pure eye candy!

Bigbuttons vitamin C is not a protein but if your Vit C serum has a low pH, if you are using something right after it that contains proteins/peptides, the proteins might suffer. Acid following an acid should not be a problem, except if it's too much for your skin or if there is a weird biological interaction

This does not directly answer your concern, but I'm a bit skeptical about the pH stuff. I would love to see an experiment whether quickly swiping a surface with an acid really changes its pH - sounds a bit against the laws of physics. Skincare is full of rules, few of them are evidence-based. I generally try to figure out why something most be done a certain way, and if I cannot find a reason, then I do whatever suits me best I quickly turned on the geeky part of my brain - we are doing pedicures on the roof terrace atm - and looked up some actual experiments. Soap is a relatively alkaline (=high pH) cleanser, this study compares the pH of the skin of soap users and pH balancers. You would expect the soap users to suffer, but there is no difference. Verdict: I think I will continue using high pH cleansers - I do love my castile soap

lucy here

frugal thanks for taking the time to explain that. I tend to believe everything I read ( gullible). Different people have taken their info from different sources of course, so there is bound to be conflicting advice. I would hate to think that i was somehow reducing the efficacy of my vit c serum!

Right, I've spent all weekend reading this amazing thread and I've decided it's high time to get something. I'm not the most flush at the moment so I was thinking a couple of bits to get going. I have quite oily, spot prone skin, so my question is, what products should I buy to kick start my new regime please?

Welcome Play? Does anyone here have oily skin? Lucysmam has just done some careful choosing so she might be able to help. And here is a Reddit page with some suggestions! I would definitely suggest salicylic acid/BHAs in some form but my skin type is dry.

I went to a local restaurant barefaced tonight! It was a hot day so I took off my makeup early, thinking of doing a face mask, but there was not enough time, so I just slapped on some Missha Super Aqua serum. It is a watery gel, really soothing and cooling, and my face looked really good after it had absorbed (can it have primer properties?), so I just swiped on some nude lip sheer and we left. And it was fine!

Has anyone here used CC creams or CC cushions?

Sorry about the question mark

Play, I went for the mizon snail recovery gel as a 'proper' starter.

According to the reading I've done, the snail part can help with healing (useful for existing acne scars I thought), is rich in antioxidants and can help with healing wounds (existing spots). The reviewer I linked didn't get on with it but, she says she has quite dry skin whereas mine tends towards oily and cystic acne prone so I figure for £3.79, it's worth a go ebay link. I think product description on there is in characters rather than letters but there are others.

That's the only serious product I've bought for now. I got some other bits just to try out and see what they're like.

I went for some platinum sheet masks (detox, defend and something else I can't remember) the one I used last night felt really nice and cooling. I just went for what I fancied there though. And with under eye masks, I went for a pack of 7 pairs of collagen ones - again, fancied seeing what they did.

My next purchase will be a hydrating toner I think - I have a fair bit of my current face wash left so will use that up nearly before I order a cleansing oil and wash.

oooh almost forgot...tomato suncream - just to see if it's tomatoey and honeypot lip balm because it's cute!

I almost forgot what I came back for!

One of the links upthread somewhere has a small section on sleeping masks and shows a tub/tin of Nivea creme, have any of you tried it? Another I've read at some point suggested it for lightening dark circles. I've a dinky pot lurking about for a while and am wondering if it's worth a try.

bigbuttons, thank you for the link (again sorry) I'm off for a look now.

I need to brush up my googling skills, I'm probably doing everyone's heads in with my inability to find stuff

lucysmam, your picks sound great!

Just a quick bookmark, info for anyone who is trying to figure how to use the two mysterious bottles in the Super Aqua intro kit.

frugal I have oily skin..well, I thought I did because foundations always melt off after a few hours, but I think now I have dehydrated/combo skin because i do get dry patches too. I have been using oil to cleanse at night and using more night stuff than normal with just a hot flannel in the morning just to see if that makes a difference, in case i have been drying my skin out too much.
I prefer bb cream to foundation as it is several steps in one and my skin looks cakey with too many layers like primer, foundation, powder.

I hope so Frugal, I haven't spent this much time and effort looking into skincare for a while.

Most of it is just to see what it's like and curiosity (the suncream) but I'm hoping to build up a proper routine & see good results.

Thank you lucys - have just purchased snail recovery gel, sheet masks and a cute panda eye treatment by Tony Moly. Really excited to try them. Will also give a bb cream a try when I get paid. The thread is amazing, but my bank might not agree!

Please excuse the billion and one ad's that come with the following link!

It's a diy sheet mask using green tea; lavender, tea tree, lemon and neem essential oils. here

Lavender is soothing, tea tree antibacterial, lemon lightening (not sure I want lightening so would probably skip that), and neem also antibacterial. Could maybe ditch that or tea tree to make it less costly.

Sounds like it's worth a go so I'll be ordering some masks and some tea tree/lavender/green tea soon to give it a go.

I'm hunting for something moisturising as well but not sure what - hyaluronic acid's meant to be good for moisturising, iIrc, but not sure about it on a mask so will do a bit more reading first.

Play you have to link the panda eye stuff now, you know .

One more then I'm off back to google - do you reckon green tea tea bags will do? I can sneak skincare onto my Tesco order too if they will! If not, I have some powder in my ebay basket along with compressed masks.

hmmmm, a lot of the hydrating ones are suggesting yogurt/yakult/cream. I can't say I fancy bunging those on my face sooooo, any serum suggestions? Or bigbuttons, any of your diy serums you'd recommend that aren't too pricey as a starter?

I found a cucumber one. It literally is just whizzed up cucumber soaked into the mask! Will add that to my cheap and cheerful "to try" list.