Obsessed with Asian/Korean stuff - taking your skincare to level 4!

[FrugalFashionista]

Asian and Korean skincare products are a big thing right now. We love them!

Tailor your routine here!
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
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
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

Orders from outside the EU: £15 or less are VAT free!

Best blogs and other resources
Reddit Asian Beauty
Fifty Shades of Snail
Snow White & Asian Pear
Skin & Tonics
more resources here...

Vol 3 of this thread here, Vol 2 of here and Vol 1 here

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

I went all out and bought the gold starfish cream. It has a lovely texture and is easily absorbed and has more 'stuff' in it then the normal kind. I'd buy it again.

Thanks :D I do like my parcels to keep coming in -So much for not spending too much!

I'm looking more for a treatment, like the magic snails stuff. I find that makes spots just vanish and seems to be helping the lines round my eyes, although that could just be wishful thinking. I usually use it after the essence/ampoule steps and then follow up with moisturiser. If you're still using Western stuff, I'm finding the Aldi Lacura serums are really good. Especially the H2O one.

I counted it up the other day and realised I'm putting fifteen different potions on my face at night. Fifteen! Ye gods.

adds magic starfish to wishlist did see the gold one on ebay earlier. I resisted as I wasn't sure what was in it.

The konjac sounds like it will be interesting then, I was imagining something like a cellulose dish sponge!

Lucysmam, I have Lioele multi seaweed gel samples, though it doesn't say anything about being fermented. Was there a particular sort you were after?

Color Crush has an excellent post on Asian sunscreens!

I have some seaweed gel samples too Wizzard - I want to try the simplified version of shark sauce from Holy Snail's blog but am not sure if they'd be ok to use

I'll do some more googling either tonight or over the weekend and see what else I come up with.

@15 potions btw - I counted 11, including prescription and a tea tree gel I'm using up but plan to replace with Tosowoong's tea tree essence I think.

Still struggling with the bioferment I give up!

Ah right - in that case I have no idea. Maybe she ferments it herself? I don't think I've come across any. Reddit might know? I'd love to try the shark sauce, but too lazy and shallow - I do like the pretty packets it all comes in!

I asked on reddit - they directed me to Active Formulas; I can find sea kelp coral but not bioferment. I'll get the laptop out over the weekend, should be easier to search on.

It seems the sea kelp coral is just an up dated version of the bioferment

Now I have that figured out, my poor brain needs a break so I'll work out how much cash I need and save it a few quid at a time until I have enough ingredients for the Holy Snail Water...and then work my way towards the Shark sauce ingredients in the same way.

Best look for scales too! But not right now.

Hooray for new starfish and propolis converts! Probably my two fave products, I love these. They have smoothed and calmed my skin, don't break me out, and the niacinamide works on my scars . Also good to hear that someone else has invested in the horribly named white power thingy, I have found that a very good tonic on days that my skin can't tolerate a 'proper' moisturiser. So relieved to hear they are changing the name.

Grin do let us know what you think of the gold starfish cream, I love the original one and wonder what is more special about this one!

Very tempted to add my name to the shark sauce list, but am moving house next month and worried that it will end up at the wrong address..lucysmam I too have made a note of the Holy Snail water, I just wonder how expensive it is to order all the ingredients from scratch (plus tools, bottles etc). Someone needs to do a YouTube how-to quickly!

And frugal it's good to know I'm not the only Kondo-er on this thread! I too come from a family of hoarders. I need to keep my shopping in check and I love what MK says about caring for the things you own rather than constantly being on the hunt to acquire new things. Today I took a bag. Of stuff to the charity shop, sold some jewellery I never wear, and posted a bunch of unused make up to a charity for women living in refuges. Am aiming to move into new house with only things that bring joy - including plenty of starfish and sleep masks

Sorry everyone for the thread derail, I won't do it again

Can you send it to your parents' house or a friend's wombat?

I think, from a look round that active formulas website, that £35-40 for ingredients, bottles and scales might be about right. I will work it out properly over the weekend though.

Dp is (as always) at me but I'm enjoying myself. Other than sewing, and some reading, I don't do much for myself.

Lol Lucysmam why didn't I think of that? I will see if I can get it sent to my mum's house - thank you! Although it sounds like saving up for the ingredients etc would be a good investment if it suits my skin.

Alrighty then, gold starfish cream review.
It's a tad more expensive then the normal starfish cream. It has less starfish in it but has small amounts of syn-ake in it as well as some other bits I can't recall. I find I does a good job of moisturising and easing the redness and it tightens the skin a bit. I'd probably not buy it again if I was using the other products seperately. However....it feels sooooo much nicer then then normal starfish cream as it is not as sticky.

Lucysmam here is some DIY info for you...

Sea kelp bioferment

DIYers discuss different types of marine extracts

Algae and comedogenicity

I want to wait a bit and see more use experiences before I jump on the shark sauce bandwagon. I am a bit worried that shark sauce is an acne trigger for me as some algae extracts score really high on comedogenicity charts. The brightening power looks amazing though in before&afters!

Sending Wombat and everyone else who is moving or decluttering great Kondoing karma - our furniture is on a truck on a ship that is scheduled to arrive in an hour, so we are expecting our stuff to arrive in less tha two hours!

Good luck with that frugal
Sorry I haven't been around, been overwhelmed by the end of term at work! Just starting to recover and put the house back together.
Am waiting on my last shark sauce ingredient, it's coming from Australia1
I successfully used some sodium lactate to bring up the Ph of some glycolic acid I had that was really stinging. Took it up to about 2.5 and it was bearable to use

Thanks for the links Frugal. I'm going to sit down over the weekend and make some notes properly.

Interesting about the seaweed and acne though - I haven't got as far as researching ingredients, just finding them (eventually). Wonder if there's something else I could use. I'll have to have a look around and see.

Actually, I wonder if it'd be worth patch testing the lioele seaweed gel samples I have. But, the Lioele stuff I have used samples of, has broken me out so maybe me and Lioele aren't compatible

wombat have received lovely laneige goodness thanks for that and please let me know when you receive the hada labo

My innisfree red wine sleep pack came. Two samples, one of a sunscreen milk and tony moly panda hand cream. Love the hand cream, have ordered that already

I noticed that my Missha cushion has no more BB cream in the bottom although the sponge still has quite a bit left. This means I may finish it soon and can perhaps cleanse it first and then experiment with DIY stuff Has anyone here done a DIY cushion? I also noticed that missha.ee sells relatively inexpensive refills.

Godasitsgets hope you'll enjoy the sleeping pack, I love mine, and my skin has been wonderfully smooth and glowy lately. Going to put it on soon as I woke up really early and am feeling knackered.

Buttons hope you'll have slightly more relaxing days soon!

Whew!!! Our stuff, 220 boxes in total, arrived. The guys were lovely and unboxed and set up all of our furniture and took out a ton of cardboard and bubble wrap. We have think about how to arrange everything and there are circa 100 boxes to be opened still but I am so relieved... In about a week we'll have everything set up.

Frugal, we still have unpacked boxes from 18 months ago I plan to sort through them over the summer (ahem...sunshine required!) holidays. 100 seems a mammoth task! Good luck with it.

Loving all the parcels and looking forward to everyone's thoughts on them!

I plan to start looking up ingredients tonight for Shark Sauce/Holy Snail Water. BigButtons, anything you can think of that I could possibly sub the sea kelp with?

Dd1 has helped herself to a silk sheet mask this evening because dd2 isn't in. I've gone for Innisfree Manuka Honey. Smells quite like real honey & fits really well. We'll see what the results are in a while

lucysmam where did you get the silk sheet masks?

They're these ones Phantom.

Not the best I've tried but they're from a UK seller so only take a few days to arrive & are pleasant enough. None has caused me any outbreak or reaction