Multi-Step Korean Skincare Routine: Winter/Spring 2015, Part II: Current Products

In Part I, we looked at the basic steps that make up a multi-step Asian routine, and how I customize my routine based off how my skin is feeling.  

I also mentioned that you don't have to use Asian products, although I have found that Asian products are best suited to a multi-step routine.  Multitaskers are actually not always a good thing; sometimes you want the right tool for the job.

It's a rabbit hole, though, because sometimes you find yourself wanting a cream for oily days, one for normal days, and one for dry days, and then maybe a mist for a little extra hydration, and that whitening serum looks promising, and you haven't found an oil cleanser that works for you just yet, and the next thing you know, your daily lineup options look like this:

It's just as terrifying the second time, isn't it? (Click image for large size)
So do you really need all of that?  Of course not.  But it is possible to use it all and make your skin happy by doing so, as long as you only use what your skin actually needs, and you don't open more products than you can actually use up in 3-6 months.  (So says skin goddess Go Hyun Jung, if you google image search her, you'll see why I listen to her wisdom.)

In this post:

Multi-Step Korean Skincare Routine: Winter/Spring 2015

You may have heard about the multi-step skincare routine popular in Asia, particularly where women (or men, for that matter) can use anywhere from 10-20 products in a single day.

This is a really challenging concept for westerners, because we are taught not to overload our skin, that excess products are actually harmful, less is more, etc.  Indeed, you might look at this image of all the products I potentially might use in a day, and be horrified:

Behold the fearsome product line-up of my Winter/Spring 2015 routine! (Click image for large size)
Before you panic or decide I am crazy, there are two things to keep in mind: 1. the key word here is "potentially" meaning I don't use them all at once, and 2. the Asian skincare philosophy is all about customization.
  
My daily routine is actually quite simple (I promise) but I have a huge range of products I may potentially add in depending on the weather, what I'm going to be doing that day, but most importantly, what my skin feels like it needs.

In this post:

Sulwhasoo Gentle Cleansing Oil Review

Oil cleansers, sigh.  I have a toxic, co-dependent relationship with them; on the one hand, I need them to properly remove my sunscreen and makeup, but on the other hand they're highly comedogenic for me because my skin's mission in life is to clog its pores at all costs.

This means I buy, try, and hate a lot of oil/balm/sherbet cleansers in my quest to find something that 1. takes off my sunscreen and makeup completely, 2. rinses/emulsifies completely, and 3. doesn't break me out.   I am asking a lot, I know.

This week I will be reviewing the Sulwhasoo Gentle Cleansing Oil (travel size) which I managed to completely empty despite it being, well, an oil cleanser.

This weekend I needed to take a picture that spanned about 5 feet, so my lightbox was useless; deciding to go ahead and continue with the same set up including the dark background = regret
I was quite pleased to see that the Sulwhasoo Gentle Cleansing Oil comes in sample/travel sizes, because I can safely assume every oil/balm/sherbet cleanser out here is going to be hated passionately by my skin.  It's just statistical probability at this point, and becomes a matter of how much my skin is going to hate it.

So why do I use them?  I'm a firm believer in the Double Cleansing Method, which is a key feature of the Asian skincare philosophy, if sunscreen or makeup is involved.  If you are new to Asian skincare, you can read more about Double Cleansing and the products recommended/formulated for that use here: Cleansing Megapost: Double Cleansing, Cleanser Types, Tools, & Techniques.

In  this post:
  • Product Details
  • Ingredients Analysis
  • Effectiveness Demo
  • Final Thoughts

Review: Beauty of Joseon Dynasty Cream; a Hidden Gem

I'm so excited to post this review!  One of the criticisms I hear about Asian beauty blogs is that it tends to be the same products over and over, and that there can be a bit of an 'echo chamber' that triggers mass bandwagoning of a single product that everyone writes about, while obscure treasures languish undiscovered and unloved.

The tricky thing is, unless you speak Korean and are plugged into the Korean blogging world, it can be difficult to catch wind of new trends/products while they're still in the developing stage.  Sometimes, you just have to take a gamble with your wallet (and your skin) and hope for the best.

A lot of the time it doesn't work out, which leaves you with a drawer full of discarded products (I recently decanted mine and sent them off to friends [link to post], so they'd have new homes) but sometimes ... sometimes magic happens.

Like this 크라클팩토리 Beauty of Joseon Dynasty Cream:
Beauty of Joseon cream, Joseon Woman cream, Beauty of Joseon Dynasty cream
Be still, my heart.  Not only is the packaging gorgeous, but the cream ... well, you'll see.
Normally, I like to use products for months before reviewing them, and as of this blog post, I have only been using this cream for 23 days**.  So why I am reviewing it so early?  Well for one, I've already completed my two-week 'isolation' testing period where I introduce a new product in isolation to measure skin reactions, for another I'm just so in love with this cream that I have to talk about it, and lastly my friends are really tired of hearing me babble about it and are demanding to see the review already.  (For more on my testing schedule, click here.)

** rest assured, months later and a second third fifth+ jar purchased, I still love it!

I should add that my expectations of a cream are pretty minimal: it should provide sustained hydration without becoming greasy, absorb easily into the skin, be pleasant to apply and wear, not have an offensive fragrance, and most importantly, not break me out.  Er.  Well I suppose that's actually a pretty picky list!

In this post:
  • Product details
  • Where and why I purchased it
  • Ingredients analysis
  • Packaging translations
  • Swatches to show the unusual texture
  • Final thoughts

This post may feature some terrible love poetry, I'm just warning you now.

Weekday Randomness: Turning your Discards into Decants

Sometimes I get asked how I manage to go through products so quickly, and while I am admittedly a 'slatherer' of skincare while battling the dryness of the desert, there are a lot of products that I try and simply don't like, don't work for me, are the wrong shade or type for my skin, or break me out.  So into the 'Discard' pile they go.

It's part of the trial-and-error nature of cosmetics; sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes things are just mediocre.  I have so many wonderful products to investigate that it's not worth holding onto products on the meh-to-NOPE scale.  I'm also not going to resell products that I've used (obviously) and I'm not really into the logistical drama that comes with selling things.  I would pass them on but none of my local friends are into Asian beauty products.

So what do I do?

DECANT CARE PACKAGES!
Decant all the things! Hundreds of tiny jars and bottles everywhere! 
Underfoot! In Piles! Under chairs!  In boxes! Driving my Spouse to the brink of insanity!
Decanting is something I already do with samples because they're usually much cheaper than full size and I like collecting pretty jars and bottles into which I decant the contents of my sample packets.

I also sometimes decant product from the full size into a smaller container to save space, such as these airless pump bottles, or because I want to keep the full-size in the fridge (cold and dark) without having to run back and forth between my bathroom and kitchen without my glasses on.

In this post:
  • How I got myself into this mess
  • Assembly of supplies
  • The decanting methods I used

Sunscreen Showdown: Battle of 3 Physical-Only Sunscreens

This week I will be doing a showdown between 3 physical-only sunscreens, which means they are full-spectrum UVA and UVB protection and contain no chemical sunscreen agents.

Samples are your friend, especially when you can buy them in packs of 10, as I did/do.
One thing I regret is not knowing earlier about Asian sunscreens.  As I mentioned in my Skin type and history post, I skipped wearing sunscreens most of my life because my skin wouldn't tolerate them, period.  *slaps self from the past, yelling "ASIAN SUNSCREENS!"*

I didn't used to have to avoid the sun like a vampire, though, most of my life I got along just fine without sunscreen.

Grocery shopping after nightfall coping method (img source)
Back in Canada, I enjoyed (?) the benefits of being so baby-faced I was lectured (at age 27) for getting married "too young" by a girl more than 5 years my junior.  Bouncers spent a long time suspiciously eyeing my ID.

I comforted myself that even if I had lingering acne, at least I wouldn't have wrinkles until my late 30's, if my family was anything to go by.  My mother was continuously carded until she was 35, so I had high hopes.

I had a good decade or more of genetic resistance to wrinkles and aging to look forward to, even if I was afflicted by those pesky zits.

Then I moved to the desert.  I had no idea that the sun could be so harsh, and I rapidly aged from looking in my late teens to looking in my early 30's, all within 5 years.  Almost 20 years of aging in 5 years. Dear lord.  Sun damage is no joke.

I tried sunscreens: so many sunscreens.  I tried Asian sunscreens, touted as so 'cosmetically elegant' that you'd feel like you were barely wearing anything at all.  Nope.  Every single one made me want to claw my own face off within an hour, and left my face full of angry breakouts.

I got into BB cream, naively thinking that that sun protection would be enough, but I know now that a whopping 1/4th teaspoon (for the face) is a common guideline and there's just no way your delicate layer of BB cream is going to give you that density.

But I couldn't wear sunscreen, my skin flared up in revolt every time I tried. Some BB creams also made me break out. Then I discovered  Cosdna and started cross-referencing the products that broke me out.  The thing they all had in common?  Chemical sunscreens.

The BB creams that didn't?  Contained only physical sunscreens.  Cue angels singing.

In this post:
  • Swatches, ingredients analysis, and mini-reviews of:
    • Nature California Aloe Fresh Sun Milk SPF50+ PA+++
    • Sunkiller Baby Milk SPF45 PA+++ 
    • IOPE UV Shield Sun Mild Clinic SPF25 PA++
  • Final thoughts

Weekday: Sheet Mask Shortage, Frantic Hauls, & Introducing Sheet Mask Reviews

Recently I was approached by a company interested in having me review a sheet mask service, among a few other things.  Don't be alarmed; I've yet to have an offer come across my digital desk that I felt was a good fit- and in this case, although sheet masks are definitely something I use (daily in fact!) I had to advise them that I had recently purchased over 140 sheet masks and thus would have to decline.

I can only imagine how long it took for them to stop laughing so they could type a reply.  You are probably doubting my sanity right now yourself.  But let me show you how/why that happened:

Count the number of sheet masks in this picture.  Do ittt!
This is a picture of my (formerly) entire sheet mask collection, or at least all that I had left. That's right, that's a whopping 5 masks in that picture.  You might then think "That's not too bad, if you use one every week that will last you 5 weeks, plenty of time to get more!"

Ah, no.  During the winter, I use sheet masks every day.  Sometimes twice a day.  Why?  Because I live here:

Top photo: moving car = blurry & unedited!
The sky really IS that colour.
These are photos I took during a Haboob (also known as a dust storm: see wikipedia link), and yes, that is a tumbleweed skittering across the intersection in the photo on the bottom.

I've said before that I live in the desert and that it wreaks havoc on my skin, but sometimes seeing is believing- or in this case, seeing is understanding.

It's very, very dry here, and absolutely choked with dust. I need to clean my face properly twice a day, and I need lots of external hydration- just drinking water is not enough.  

I use a pH adjusting toner instead of waiting for my skin to naturally adjust after cleansing, because my face will become dry enough to form flakes within 30 seconds after rinsing.  It's that dry. 

(If you want to learn more about why I use a pH adjusting toner to prep for pH dependent products like Vitamin C L-AA serum, BHA, or AHA, check out my post on Putting your products in order, including pH dependent acids)

So you can see I need those sheet masks, every day, sometimes twice a day.  I neeeeed them. *grabby hands*  So when I realized I had less than a week's worth of masks, I panicked.  Then I shopped while panicked. Ooops!

In this post:
  • Sheet mask shortage crisis (well you've already seen this part)
  • Frantic sheet mask haul from 11st: cost, time elapsed, and savings
  • Pictures + prices + reasons for purchase
  • How I'll be reviewing sheet masks from now on