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!

m0gz the pore treatment sounds great! I don't layer skincare but I often mix two different BB creams to get just the right shade and coverage (a tiny pot + a clean manicure stick that can also be used as a spatula)
bigbuttons great to hear that your undereye coverup worked and your vacation sounds dreamy!!!
dafty you'll find lots of coeliac friendly options here. Enjoy Rome, right now it is a lovely time to visit!

One of the Asian beauty bloggers wrote a brief essay on skincare as entertainment - or skincaretainment. This is what the Korean stuff is all about for me: curious textures, nice smells, absorbing rituals, beautiful packaging, the thrill of new and unknown. A good sheet mask is a bit like a great movie or a lovely glass of wine. A sleeping pack is evocative and like thinking about lovely exotic trips. I've never liked Western skincare because putting on LRmoisturizer feels

Sorry, message escaped - LRP moisturizer feels like a chore, like flossing my teeth, not like an adventure.

skincaretainment story here

I so agree with the skincaretainment perspective. And also on the 50 snails lady who said that the routine of Asian Beauty helped her manage her depression - I can see how the encouragement to self-care and the routine of it would be quite healing.

On a less profound front I had NO parcels today . Come on Postie!

Quite so wombat I am finally starting to look at myself again after years of feeling awful. I feel even better now the bags are gone!

Wholeheartedly agree with the skincaretainment sentiment. It's a whole adventure in pretty packaging for me & most of it has cost way less than a going out sort of treat would.

Somebody asked me who does my Botox today. Apparently it's well done and very subtle. Im 34. I laughed and then explained retinol, vitamin c, niacinimade, hyraolonic acid etc! They laughed at my current routine and told me Botox four times a year sounded far less hassle!

I've ordered a few bits and bobs but other than my mega haul of sheet masks none of it has arrived yet, although I got a post office card today so perhaps there'll be something exciting tomorrow.

Can anyone explain what cushions are? I keep seeing them mentioned.

MrsGuyGarvey cushions, from what I can make out, are a new way of storing / applying creamy products like bb creams. The product is in the spongey cushion which is in a compact. You apply it with a sponge (pressing the sponge into the cushion to pick up product and then dabbing it on your face), it's supposed to go on very smoothly and lightly.
Lisa Eldrige does a Korean makeup tutorial using a cushion bb here and I think it looks fab - really glowy and natural.
The thing that puts me off a bit is that sponges seem to be a bit unhygienic to me - although the Asian Beauty bloggers seem to think the sponges are made of some antibacterial substance, I'm not so convinced...

Congratulations Chester! That is very exciting. And Botox doesn't come in cute packaging or smell of tomatoes / bananas / snails
Glad that you found the pore cleanse good M0gz, my skin does feel lovely afterwards. Although I'm not expecting anything to reduce pore size, my skin feels a lot brighter..

..also I've now added wine sleeping pack to my wish list. Frugal was yours by Holika Holika or Innisfree?

One more: here is a My Beauty Diary sheet mask chart which tells you which masks have which effects (brightening, moisturising, antioxidants etc). Useful!

Waiting for loads of new goodies from Seul, but still searching for a cushion foundation/cover (possibly a mineral one) - any suggestions, please?

Wombat thanks again for stellar links - will enjoy looking at them!

Chester wow that is very very impressive - but I can fully believe that you are getting great results and deserve all the compliments! And I don't find the routines faffy at all!

MrsGuyGarvey I've ordered a BB cream cushion from missha.ee, have some concerns about the hygiene too but watched a couple of tutorials how to clean them and apparently it is possible to buy new sponges too. Also read somewhere that they don't last very long, so just going to give one a try. I actually wanted to order an empty magic cushion compact for my homemade BB cream mixes (Missha US sells them) but geting it shipped was too pricey.

I saw a space age Japanese foundation on Reddit AB today - two separate phases in a liquid that you somehow mix together by shaking it. Super intriguing!

Wombat I have the Innisfree red wine jelly mask. It has a light fermented smell (associated with happy memories of trips to faraway vineyards for me but might just smell weird and yeasty to someone else). The açai mask was Innisfree too, a bit like putting cool jam on my face, the stickiest mask I have worn, but again loved the smell - it reminded me of frozen açai desserts topped with granola. I'm about to apply some red wine jelly on my sticky face - couldn't do this outdoors because I would be a bee and fruit fly magnet

Has anyone here used CosRx BHA or AHA products? I will be running out of salicylic pads soon and now that my first South Korean order has safely made it here, I might try one of their products as a replacement.

Here are some pics of a cushion in action. Have heard good things about IOPE cushions.

Thank you! Was secretly quite chuffed they thought I had used botox!

I need a new undereye concealer and wondering if I should venture into something Korean. I was using the Collection 2000 and thought it was meh, and prior to that used the Bobbi Brown creamy eye corrector, which is pricey. I am unsure if I should try out the Clarins or try something from one of the Asian beauty ranges.

Chester your routine is clearly working for you Bet it's not half as pricey and much more attractive to look at too!

Frugal, I have a sample of cosrx natural bha skin returning a-sol toner I got with one of my orders. Haven't tried it yet but will let you know what it feels like.

(sorry in advance for little posts - am on app & can't scroll )

I saw that dual phase foundation too Frugal, looked interesting.

Which is the best counter for me to go to for a foundation shade to match a bb cream to? I'm still a bit baffled by them all.

Oh that's great Lucysmam! I'd be super interested in A-Sol!

The Frozen dress you are making sounds absolutely fantastic - my DDs are

Hmmm, my latest 1st world dilemma: I'm fancying a sleeping pack but can't decide whether to go for the Laneige Water Sleeping Pack EX or the Bio-essence Hydra Tri-Action Aqua Droplet Sleeping Beauty Mask.

CH rates the latter, but I can't find many positive reviews. Does anyone have experience of either please?

I think all the CosRx names are pretty dreadful! And they all seem so similar. I'd be interested in what you think of that toner too Lucysmam. It's on my ebay watch list but I can't justify it yet, my first AB splurge hasn't even arrived yet except for the MBD sheet masks

MoominMamma I haven't tried either but a different Laneige pack was lovely.

It's the third one in a long list for my girls and their school friends Frugal. Dd1's is the biggest so far & the blue-ness of it is making my eyes go a bit funny (feels like the face's eyes) so has taken a while.

I looked at the COSRX stuff when I first started looking at toners but sort of wrote it off because of the packaging probably a bit wrong of me but most of it is pretty. I'm still not 100% sure when I ought to use it which is why I left it until I did some more reading.

This is one of the charts I found on reddit earlier relating to aha/bha and their properties. I presume from that, that it is suitable for use as part of my morning routine? If I'm muddled up, please tell me!

m0gz, thanks for the gelatine eye mask idea - turns out it can be used to build faces for costumes as well - like halloween-ey type stuff. I'll be trying it as a beauty treatment and instead of liquid latex for scar making or other bloody stuff come halloween & it's cheap enough for me to do some practising

TheWombat- that My Beauty Diary chart is very helpful. Does anywhere sell a variety pack of them? I don't fancy buying one flavour in a big box and fancy trying a few different ones.