Obsessed with Asian/Korean stuff - taking your skincare to level 3!

[FrugalFashionista]

Asian and Korean skincare products are big thing right now. We love them!
Tailor your multistep skincare routine here! (or see this pic)

Some of our favorite products so far...
Biore UV Aqua Rich Watery Essence SPF 50 Sunscreen
Missha Magic Cushion BB Cream #21
Lioele Dollish Veil Vita in Purple
Holika Holika Petit Jelly BB Cream
CosRx Returning A-sol
Scinic Propolis Serum
Mizon Hyaluronic Acid Serum
Missha Time Revolution Night Repair Science Activator Ampoule
Missha Super Aqua Cell Renew Snail products & trial kit
Mizon Snail Repair Cream
Mizon Returning Starfish Cream
Mizon Good Night White Sleep Mask
Innisfree Wine Jelly Sleeping Pack
My Beauty Diary Imperial Birds Nest and Hyaluronic Sheet Masks
Innisfree Trouble Care Sheet Masks
Innisfree Real Squeeze Sheet Masks
Tony Moly Avocado Mask
Nexcare Acne Patches

Our favorite sellers:
UK-based Bits and Bobs of Beauty
EU-based Missha.ee, Missha.de
Korean Innisfree
On eBay f2plus1, sing-sing girl, Iamlove, blueprint21
Orders from outside the EU: £15 or less are VAT free!

Blogs and other resources
Reddit Asian Beauty, Fifty Shades of Snail, Snow White & Asian Pear, Skin & Tonics
more resources here...
Vol 2 of this thread here and Vol 1 of here

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

Hi cardi

You will find lots of lovely AB products at watsons or guardians and Sasa do these plus cosmetics. They're kind of like the boots of malaysia.

Also there are large skincare/cosmetics booths at the airport at KL both at arrivals and dept so if u get to the airport early you can make a few more sneaky purchases before you head home! I saw more expensive brands at the airport like sulwhasoo, laneige and sk-II (£££!)

Also in the larger malls there are skinfood shops, innisfree. I bought a lot of Bioessence stuff which I haven't ended up really liking so wouldn't recommend those but would recommend hada labo, Biore for sunscreens, innisfree do good products for spots, and of course lots of sheet masks! My scheming and my beauty diary are recommended. I think innisfree gets good reviews too.

I was just newly into AB then but now I would look for LJH tea tree essence which is quite expensive here but may be cheaper there, try out the cushions, bbcreams, and if you are returning to a mall in a few days ask for samples of stuff you are interested in so you can trial them in between. Lastly enjoy the trip! We loved it and would easily return again for another holiday (and not just for the AB goodies)!

frugal I have some L'Erbolario (merharees) perfume which I really like. I didn't know they did other stuff, but will avoid it now! What I would give to be with you as you sift through your perfume hoard.....

lucy yes those are the ones I have. I can't really have pencil sharpeners in the house( long story), so used my secret Stanley knife to sharpen one. The problem is they have gone very hard. Maybe they are better in hot countries where the pencil will be heated up and stay softer?

Cosrx blackhead has finally arrived, very exited, just hope I don't have a reaction like frugal

An hour between applying tretinoin and other skincare? My face would fall off! I leave it ages before applying retin-a (I say 20 mins but that's my minimum, it can actually be up to 45 mins) but I didn't think it would be a problem afterwards?

Anyway my skin is definitely clearing up, although it needs a lot of gentle moisturising.

There is a small dent in the clothes mountain. I need but am fasting today so green will have to do.

Scrambled in theory you should leave about an hour after Retin a and before anything else, however I've had many a night where I've put moisturiser on immediately as I've forgotten or been too tired. It hasn't made any difference. I was about to move from alternate nights to daily but recently started using my Bravura ginseng toner as a ph reducer and I'm now a lot flakier so I'm going to have to be patient.

ILove - I have the same Benton samples, I've been storing the little bottle upside down to help it come out but it's still very gloopy. Like you I've been using lots of new stuff so I'm trying to be patient and not use it just yet.

mowglik I bought the Bioessense stuff too, the snail cream one. It wasn't any good for me, even my DH doesn't like it and he isn't fussy at all.

I saw Laneige at the big mall, was so tempted by the sleep pack, but I didn't cave in :)

Should have bought the MBD Black Pearl sheet masks though, it's hard to find in this country. Even the K-Pop shop in Chinatown London is out of stock.

Oo there's a k-Pop shop in London? Do they do cushions and bb creams? I would also suggest checking out shades of bb creams and cushions you might be interested in cardi as it's difficult to figure out what shade to go for when buying online.

The laneige sleep mask was the first thing I bought on arrival and used it throughout my holiday and loved it. It's still my favourite sleep mask out of laneige, mizon good night white, sulwhasoo overnight, and daiso hyaluronic although the daiso is good too at all of £2.70

newsreader do we need to move to retin every night or is it fine to continue as every other day? I've used it three times so far and just a bit of stingyness on my nose but otherwise my skins been coping fine. I've been leaving it half an hour before applying cerave pm

The longer you leave putting any products on top or tretinoin the better. Ideally you put nothing. I usually put something an hour or so after, but never before. Sometimes my skin can take just tretinoin on its own and sometimes it needs a buffer of sorts later in the evening.

Perfume porn for Buttons

proteins Bits and Bobs of Beauty have the Black Pearl masks in stock currently. DISCOUNT20 code should take a bit of the sting out of the price.

mowglik There are two.. ;) Both on Newport Street, Chinatown. They're opposite each other. One stall has a rather watchful lady ("No touching!!), in the corner of a larger shop.

The other is a small shop, and they have some Hada Labo, Laneige Sleep Packs, Innisfree sheet masks, Donkey Milk sheet masks etc.

Neither has a great selection of sunscreen, I saw Shiseido Annessa but that's about it. Both are cash only, both have huge markups. I paid £14.99 for a box of My Beauty Diary masks.

One of them (the small shop) has a selection of cushions and bb creams testers :)

Thanks Talisin I'll reward myself when I finish this (tedious) task at work!

My skin can't cope with nothing on top of tretinoin, it's far too delicate. It is working, so I think maybe once my skin gets used to it I will try to leave it for longer. But right now it's still getting used to it.

frugal I am weeping.I want to smell them all!!!!!

Okay I'm done with my mega beauty and perfume clearout. I found some Kanebo, Shiseido and three Korean Erborian samples from Italian Sephora - I could have discovered Asian beauty a year ago right in my bedroom

Bigbuttons come and visit me sometime... It is a bit of an Aladdin's cave - you would probably die if you saw it all
Right now I feel super smelly!!! I organized my three perfume sample drawers and packed my full bottles and my Zino by Davidoff and Coromandel decants had leaked a bit. And I had to try on a deliciously caramelized last drop of Carnal Flower. And it's hot

Thank you so much for replies, in Dubai at the moment - almost there! I'm just going to copy list out - we have nearly 4 hours there so plenty of time for browsing...

proteins I haven't tried retain a but am interested - did you ask for it by a brand name? And can any skin 'take' it?

Cardi if you find anything gorgeous in Dubai, please let me know! I'm trying to learn whether Korean and Japanese beauty products or chains like Aritaum or Innifree or Taiwanese sheet masks are available there.

Oh I passed through Dubai on my last trip to KL too!

Yes, you can ask at the counter for Retin-A which is the active ingredient. They will offer you a range of concentrations (0.025% to 0.1%), and a range of brands and formulations (gel, cream and maybe even encapsulated). I think they costs about RM33 which is about £7 here?

I don't know what you mean by skin taking it though. It's true that many skins will be dry, irritated and possibly purge at the early stages. There is lots of advice about introducing it gradually (0.025%, every 5 days, every 3 days etc) and ensuring skin is completely dry before putting it on, to minimise irritation.

Try the more reputable pharmacies like Guardian. I know the less reputable ones will offer more 'extreme' drugs which are not OTC here, but you want to be careful. I saw Triluma (retin-a, steroid + hydroquinone combo) too, and I wouldn't want to go on that without a dermatologist's hand hold.

I've just had the Dragon Bloody Essence out of it's box (resisted the urge to slap it on but so far so good with the HL)...it's a glass bottle...I NEEEEEEEED one of those spatulas for when I get to the bottom of it . But they're so expensive so I might have to look for a long handled hoof stick or similar to use.

Still mooching at propolis serums/ampoules. Ideally I don't want to spend much over a tenner but the Scinic (sp?) one is tempting - as is the Skin Food royal jelly.

Frugal, I'm of your perfume stash! Your clearing out of products reminded me of me before having the girls - I had soooooo much stuff it's unreal but I loved it . These days I'm enjoying spending again but being sensible about what I buy instead of randomly buying 'pick me ups'.

Having said that - I did have a rummage and found some odds and sods (Nivea blue pot among them) that I will re purpose for body use rather than them sit around.

I've gone for a silk sheet mask tonight, from the fridge for extra coolness. Have had a headache all afternoon & it's v. soothing.

Lucysmam I'm obsessed with the skinny spatula too but it is so expensive that I could buy several full size lipglosses for the price... So I've figured it is not worth it If anyone finds a cheap skinny spatula, please let me know...

Re: the move, past overshopping plays a role in how much stuff we have accumulated. But I think our clearouts also have a lot to do with change of climate (won't need sundresses and sandals that much, sob) and the children growing and changing. A lot of it is just sheer junk, packing materials and cardboard boxes and piles of paper and children's art. Some broken things too because I'd hoped to find the time and energy to fix them, but never did

I learned recently that to keep the house organized you should group all similar items together in one specific place. This has been a revelation. I've sorted through stuff and returned them to their proper places thinking all the time how to build a system where everything is in its logical place in the next house. For example, I had a huge plastic bag full of various travel minis and hotel toiletries. I sorted them into shampoos, skincare, moisturizers, mini soaps and tooth products. I'll probably need to buy a see-through acrylic box with dividers so that when leaving for a trip, I can just grab one item from each compartment and see right away if I am running low on something. I often accidentally buy multiples when I can't find something And here I have had makeup and skincare in three or four different places, so it has been hard to keep track of what was where.

I want to be careful with AB, I don't want to overdo it, I want everything to still fit in that Missha box. See - it still does. BTW, there is a great discussion on Reddit AB on consumerism!

I hear ya on the junk front! We moved here just under 2 years ago & there is loads still in the garage which I plan to try and sort over the summer holidays. A lot of it is packing boxes and outgrown stuff and broken stuff. Box of dvd's we're never going to look at again since they've been there since moving. All sorts of randomness really.

It is expensive for a spatula, isn't it! Christmas list maybe for that one

I'm saving that discussion for with a mid morning tomorrow, there were some very long posts in there & my brain's too tired to focus on it properly so I've been mooching at haul posts instead and ebay for bike stuff for dp's birthday.

What you can achieve with some Sugru, cocktail sticks and dubious manual dexterity.

Some are more spatula-shaped than others, admittedly. Shall see how they perform when dry.

Having had a quick look, these seem a little more affordable - the shipping to the UK is $3.95

www.beautyspoon.com/buy

Would one of those metal cuticle thingies do it?

Thanks for the mini spatula ideas!!! Loving the creative solutions.

I'm feeling a bit naked because I packed my Korean stuff yesterday and cannot do a full routine. Snail bee and my rice pudding sleeping pack are still in the fridge and I have my cushion and some decants.