Category: Skincare Tutorials

There’s a lot more to taking care of your skin than just giving it a wash and slapping on some lotion. Learn how to make the most of your routine with my skin care tutorials.

  • Smart Skincare Shopping: Managing Skincare Product Expectations

    There’s a predatory side to the beauty industry, a shadowy underbelly where cosmetics marketers reinforce societal pressures and exploit consumers’ personal insecurities to sell product. One way to deal with this ugly reality is to trust no one and side-eye everything…but I don’t have it in me to pickle myself in the salty brine of cynicism, and I don’t…

  • The Clay Mask that Ruined My Night, Plus Some Gentler Pore Cleaners and My Rescue Masks

    I’ve had a few bad reactions to products in my time as a K-beauty and skincare enthusiast, but never have I ever had a reaction as immediate and as bad as I did to the clay mask I used tonight. Within minutes after putting the thing on, I was in full ABORT! ABORT!! ABORT!!! mode. Let’s…

  • How to (Safely) Fade a Tan (If That’s What You Want to Do)

    If there were an official AB FAQ, “How do I fade a tan?” would be right near the top, yet it’s one of the easiest to answer (though not to do). To fade a tan, you don’t need products marketed as “whitening.” You’ll need sun protection, progressive exfoliation, melanin inhibition, and a buttload of time and patience.

  • My Spring 2016 Asian Skincare Routines Explained, Face Mask Tips and Tricks, and Lord Fiddy’s Manly AF Skincare Routine

    Are you having trouble understanding how K-beauty skincare routines like mine come together? I often link to my skincare wardrobe to demonstrate the variety that makes Asian skincare and K-beauty in particular so great, but if you’re new to skincare routines that change by the day, it can be hard to visualize how that works. Looking at people’s skincare…

  • K-Beauty Shopping with Fiddy! Memebox Mini-Review Megapost and Discount

    So I was idly browsing Memebox US and adding things to my cart, as I do, when I realized that a shopping guide would be a much more constructive outlet for my window-shopping energy. Memebox US, one of my favorite shops of 2015 thanks to generally reasonable prices and fast domestic shipping, is always one of the first sites I…

  • Asian Skincare Shopping Tips: When to Pass on Tempting Products

    In the AB world, the graveyard of regrettable purchases stretches for miles in every direction, a barren and blighted necropolis marked by inexplicably cute headstones and forever haunted by the souls of dollars wasted, never to return. Every day, even more products suffer an untimely trashing and even more dollars drift away. We all fall into the BUY…

  • Dry Skin Megapost: 3 Great Facial Oils and 3 Ways to Use them

    I’m not really a sucker for tradition (in skincare or anything else), but even I have to admit that when our ancestors weren’t busy smearing mercury-laden blush onto their cheeks or dropping dead from makeup-related lead poisoning, they were doing some things right. Like moisturizing their skin with oils. Facial oils are some of the oldest beauty products around. From  ancient Egypt and…

  • The Fiddy’s Choice Awards, Part 1: My Favorite K-Beauty Products of 2015

    Some products featured in this post were originally provided by Fifty Shades of Snail sponsors in compliance with my sponsorship policy. Affiliate links in this post generate commissions that support Fifty Shades of Snail. Press samples are marked with an asterisk (*). Affiliate links are marked with a double asterisk (**). The year is almost over. For me,…

  • Casual Tuesday: Enter the Acid Toner

    Guys, I’ve added a new step to my skincare routine! And I know you may be wondering, Where do you even have room for a new step? or maybe Do you really need another step? Well, the answer to the second is up for debate, but I wouldn’t be here blogging about it if it hadn’t…

  • Save My Tretface: A Dry Skin Sample Routine and Best Practices

    Here in boringly sunny southern California, the temperatures have finally dropped, the leaves on the few trees that are not palm trees have started to kind of change color, the humidity has plummeted, and my struggles with winter-dry skin have begun. My Curology prescription is absolutely crushing my old sunspots and slowly but surely smoothing away…