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!

bigbuttons which shade in the petit bb cream did you go for.
I really like it and hope you will too

Here's one more mask idea for you lucysmam from Alicia Yoon from Peach & Lily: grind oatmeal in a food processor and mix it 1:1 with milk, add 1tbsp of honey. Spread on you face, wait for 10 minutes, rinse off with lukewarm water. And she says drinking green tea also helps.

Also remember that the starchy water from washing rice can be used as a face wash! The options are endless!

VeganCow I dedicated a full shelf in my bathroom to my Korean stuff (with a bit of LRP and Cerave thrown in) - four BBs and three sleeping masks! I keep the sheet masks, samples and my cute Missha Super Aqua pouch and its minis in my bedroom, as I like to add the final layers when I am in bed reading!

lucysmam more Alicia Yoon stuff for you - she seems to use green tea bags!

Shutting up soon but lucysmam one of the items on my shopping list is the Laneige Multiberry Yogurt Repair Pack. I want to try some fermented stuff, but plain Greek yogurt would probably be just as nice.

I'm interested in trying an Asian CC cream (they are sheerer than BBs), here is an interesting post that talks about how BBs and CCs differ.

lucy you could make up some HA gel if you have the powder.
My last mask used my c serum and HA gel.
I really recommend investing in HA powder.

vegan I can't remember the shade.
I think though that it was the clearing one! I'm really rubbish at knowing my face. I think I am quite pale but a friend thinks that I am dark with Mediterranean skin!

Thanks Frugal, for some reason using milk, oats and honey doesn't sound as bad as yogurt or yakult. I'm just off to school with the girls so will have a read of your link when I get in.

bigbuttons, I'll have a look at the HA powder on the website you linked the other day.

Do any of you have oily skin & would tell me what toner you use, please? I wonder if I'm off down the wrong track looking at hydrating ones

bigbuttons I used to be like that about not knowing shades. I used to go for the medium shade in foundations and they were all wrong, then finally got the lightbulb moment when I watched a Lisa Eldridge video where she says if you have a different shade face to your neck or you have any facial redness etc, to match the shade to your neck and chest rather than face. Then it all blends in seamlessly. I turned out a lot paler than I realised and am now usually the lightest or 2nd lightest in a range.

bb creams are mostly for people with pale skin, and there arent many that are geared towards the yellow warm rather than pink spectrum. Anyone who has pale olive skin, I can recommend this bb cream here, they do more than one shade which is good

Theres a youtuber who does great Asian bb cream reviews, I have watched them all and like her videos

BB and CC cream swatches from Reddit - I should swatch mine but it's a project!

Vegan, if you do not mind me asking..do I see a Holika Holika bb cream in your lot? If it is, would you mind telling me your opinion of the product?

I can't link as I'm on my phone sorry but I bought it from eBay via sing sing girl. It's called Tony moly Panda's dream brightening eye base. I had no idea what it was, but it is so cute, I couldn't resist!

My first Asian sunscreen! I've worn the Missha All-around Safe Block Mild Essence Sun Milk SPF 45 for three very hot and sunny days now. Really liking it!
Consistency: runny but not watery, like light cream - watch out, it's easy to squirt out more than you need
Smell: peaches and plastic, not overwhelming and dissipates quickly
White cast: none
Eye sting: none so far
Breakouts: none in three days
Not greasy on my skin, weightless, did not melt during exercise. I forgot I was wearing sunscreen. The bottle is slightly see through so you can see exactly how much there is left.
Compatibility with stuff on top: seamless with Missha BB cream and Bobbi Brown undereye concealer. Leaves a slightly tacky finish for at least 10 minutes so not an ideal base for mineral foundation. My nose got a bit shiny during the day but that was probably the BB cream and a dab of powder fixed it.
Downside: Smallish bottle.
Where? Missha Germany. A slightly different sister product sold in a UK-based shop.
Comparisons to other sunscreens: I prefer this to Neutrogena Clear Face because it has higher spf and feels a bit nicer on. Enormously better than my Chanel spf 50 fluid (no white cast, no melting) and not on the same page with LRP Anthelios facial creams (binned). My Biore hasn't arrived yet.

Play the pandas are adorable!

More pandas!

Frugal, that sounds good!

I've been wearing the Coppertone suncream from Poundworld the past few days & had planned on a nip into the 99p shop on Friday to see what they had to offer.

I didn't think it had left me looking white but several people on the morning drop off today commented that I looked pasty & under the weather and this was the only thing I had changed since I saw them last on Friday . But, I don't know whether it was the cream or me, I saw a couple of them at the birthday party we went to on Saturday and no-one said anything then but it was a brighter day.

I'll try again tomorrow and see what (if anything) is said.

Other than now being a bit as to whether it left me looking pasty I was pleased with it - no smell, easily absorbed after a few mins, foundation went on nicely on top(maybe bb cream would go over better and I'd not get the pasty comments - maybe it looked a bit put on top of something iyswim?) & no melty-ness or icky feeling half way through the day.

I'm currently searching for a hand mask that I have ingredients for to do tonight. I've had my hands in and out of the big fish tank most of the day & they're quite sore.

I've had my second delivery of goodies. Today I have a Mizon snail gel cream and a Mizon sleep mask. Also loads of lovely little freebies.
I see from my ebay purchase list that I have yet another sleep mask winging its way over and lots of other....stuff.
need to work out where to fit the snail gel in to the routine. I think somewhere between the hada labo and the face oil!

I have a lidl sunscreen, factor 50, much less greasy than the VERY VERY expensive heliocare! I'm hoping that the nasty spots will now stop.
I too love my BIORE, the downside is the bottle size. Can't be doing with that.

Frugal I'm this >< close to buying the panda kit! Oh dear, wondering what I can economize on to justify it?!

Right, I am still on toners...

Frugal and bigbuttons, you baffled me the other day with the talk of acid/alkali etc but I'm toying with trying an exfoliating toner for 2x a week and a hydrating one for the other 5 days. Does this sound reasonable?

I've been using the exfoliating face scrub less since it was mentioned (poss on another thread or a blog post) that over-exfoliating can cause just as much trouble as none at all & my skin is clearer -to me who scrutinises every inch - this past week ish and I haven't noticed any flaky patches which I very occasionally get.

I'm guessing from this that 2x a week should be sufficient to slough off dead skin but not so much that it's drying out and getting patchy.

I received my Innisfree Manuka honey sheet masks today and have had one on - was lovely and I think hydrating. It was fairly wet but I squeezed the extra moisture out of the packet and used it on my neck and décolletage.

Will see how my skin looks tomorrow.

My sunscreen arrived today! That was bloody quick. I got it from this user: fujisan_jp

Its the Biore Watery Gel spf50 and although I haven't worn it on my face yet, I tried it on my hand and OH. MY. GOD. It completely disappeared! Instantly! I went around shoving my hand in peoples faces going LOOK! Its UNDETECTABLE!

Everyone thinks I'm just a wee bit too excited about sunscreen, lol.

Anyway, thats not my pic, its a google one, but I wanted to show the packaging as the bottle is just plain baby blue.

Oh it was on Ebay by the way, in case that made no sense.

I have one last one for today - I presume diy serums would need to be stored in the little brown bottles you get essential oils in? And out of sunlight, so in a make up case or similar?

oops just realised I have missed a few messages..

frugal your shelf's looking good..would like to try Dr Jart one day. Which shade Missha do you have?

You asked about cc cream, I tried one which was sent as a sample, it was the Lioele one and starts off white then turns skin toned, like magic. A dewy finish I found, and not as heavy coverage as the bb creams.
The youtuber I linked to earlier has a review video on her channel where she demos this cc cream.

SilverNightFairy I have 5 Holika Holika bb creams, 4 are the Petit and I have the Essential, Watery, Moisturising and Clearing and then the Aqua Petit Jelly in shade 1. I like them all really, but the shades are all slightly different. I would recommend the Essential one for normal skin or Clearing one for combo/problem skin and the Moisture one for dry skin. My favourite shade is the essential one as it is less grey/pink and slightly warmer which I like. But I think the Aqua Petit Jelly one in the glass bottle is better than the normal plastic tube petit range and would buy that again.

lucy yes, I store mine in empty oil bottles. I always keep empty brown glass bottles! I also keep my serums in the fridge. It's not a hassle. I'll wash and tone my face, carry on with breakfasts, then put serum on and at some point go back to the bathroom to finish of the routine.
I use aha/bha's every morning and evening. It is a gentle way of exfoliating. I don't do scrubs. I think the acids have been the one main thing that's made an immediate difference to my skin.
annarose the biore is ace isn't it. I have the pink bottle. It's like putting on silk! As I said the bottle size is a big limiting factor for me though

Thanks very much big. I'll have to hunt some down on ebay for the mo, I have very little in the way of skincare/beauty stuff atm so no little bottles that could be recycled (for now ).

I think I'm going to start with the vitamin c and invest in some glycerin - I've been reading some more & it seems that a lot of sheet masks have glycerin in there somewhere to encourage the goodness to penetrate further.

It sounds like I'd need something else as well but I haven't worked out what yet (the last article I read mentioned that it should be 1/4 glycerin to 3/4...I can't remember or re-find it to check ) then whatever serum I was adding just a couple of drops of before soaking the mask. I will find it to check and then write it down.

Actually, I think this might be the perfect use for a lurvely notebook I was given at Christmas but haven't wanted to write in because it's so pretty