Finding the best skin care products since 2014. Started with a focus on Korean skincare and grew from there. Skincare tips and beauty tips that work, maybe some hamster butts too
Today has been a horribly sad day, for reasons that I won’t go into because I almost never feel it is my place to do publicly. What I will go into is what I’ve been thinking all day, which is that more than anything else, our world needs positive forces in it to counteract the darkness around us–even positive forces that are fairly minor, like the positive force a mere beauty blogger might be.
So I’ll talk about something I’ve noticed a lot in the last few years. And that is that so many of us are so hard on ourselves about our skin, causing so much needless pain. (more…)
Just about everyone has at least one beauty sore spot, a constant cause of self-consciousness that resists nearly all attempts at eradication. Mine is my upper lip hair. I hated it when I was 17 and I hate it today. The hairs are dark, they grow fast, and since my skin these days has gotten relatively light and somewhat translucent thanks to years of diligent skincare, they show. Rationally, I know it can’t be anywhere near as noticeable to others as it is to me. In my mind, though, I look like this:
It’s funny thinking about it now, but I actually didn’t get into skincare at all until I was 33. Before then, I typically washed my face with whatever decently priced and usually scrubby facial cleanser was on sale at the drugstore. I thought the dry, tight, desperate-for-moisturizer feeling I got after every wash meant my cleanser was working. Then I learned about the effect a cleanser’s pH can have on skin. Now I have nightmares about Shiseido Perfect Whip cleanser.
Switching to neutral pH or mildly acidic cleansers made a huge difference to the health and appearance of my skin. Soon after committing to the low-pH life, I started breaking out less. My skin no longer screamed for moisture immediately after cleansing. And even before I fine-tuned the rest of my routine, my complexion gained a new suppleness and healthier appearance. That was enough to reel me in for life.
Problem was, I found the drugstore low-pH cleansers I started out with (CeraVe’s and Neutrogena’s) about as exciting as unseasoned boiled potatoes, and acidic cleansers weren’t much of A Thing in K-beauty a few years ago. The debut of COSRX’s low pH cleanser was a big deal. It took a few years for low pH cleansers to catch on.
Four years later, my bathroom and empties shelf (okay, shelves) have accumulated more bottles of low pH Asian cleansers than 2013 me could ever have imagined existing, let alone owning at once. I wouldn’t say they grow on trees at this point, but the orchard is looking mighty fertile.
This Low pH Cleanser Tree will one day be a forest.
This list is a rundown of just the cleansers I’ve liked in the past year or so–basically, the ones I still have hanging around. (more…)
Over the past couple of years, I have gotten a ton of questions about skincare during pregnancy. Questions that I’ve never been comfortable with answering, since I chose to follow the Way of Parental Disappointment and not become a doctor. But today I bring you…pregnancy skincare tips from a doctor!
Our guest poster, Dr. Joyce, is a dermatology resident in NYC. She went to college and medical school at Stanford and is currently finishing her last year of dermatology training at NYU, and she’s graciously sharing her expertise with us on skincare during pregnancy.
People often ask me how I can possibly get through the piles of products that my (very appreciated) mail carrier and UPS carrier bring to my door. It’s a fair question, I’ve just now decided, as I gaze into my overflowing beauty closet and then down the long aisle of boxes that lines the wall on my side of my bedroom.
Listen up, guys. I don’t know what the heck you all have been doing to your faces, but judging from the number of questions about overexfoliation that have hit my inbox and Instagram DMs in the last few weeks, some of you really need to step away from the acids and scrubs. So uh…step away from the acids and scrubs. And settle down so we can talk about overexfoliation!
Today I’ll be taking a train up to Los Angeles, where I’ll be speaking at the BEAUTCHAT Beauty Class alongside some other awesome AB and K-beauty bloggers. I’ll only be in L.A. for two days and one night, but since I’ll be there for a special skincare event, I’ve had to give a lot of thought to what products I’m bringing and putting on my face. I chose products from my current lineup that I know I can rely on for the effects they produce. In my list below, I’ve also pointed out some alternatives for a few of the more expensive or difficult-to-find items. Wanna see?
I’ve been putting off my review of the Amorepacific Time Response Skin Renewal Serum (and the rest of the Time Response line) for quite a long time. Not because I don’t know how I feel about the product, but because it’s a $500 serum. That price apparently exceeds my comfort level for talking about a skincare product by quite a lot.
But ultimately, the point of accepting press samples is the opportunity to review products I wouldn’t otherwise be able or willing to acquire, and this is a hell of an opportunity. So let’s all go stick our wallets in the freezer and get down to business.
For the major US-based K-beauty shops, it’s become a rite of passage to launch an in-house skincare line (or at least an exclusive product collaboration with a well known brand).
It’s a pretty bold statement. Launching a house brand implies that the nearly inexhaustible variety of products already available in the market aren’t enough, that the shop’s vision is competitive with the established brands and formulations they already stock. Glow Recipe is the latest shop to make that statement. They sent me their Blueberry Bounce Gentle Cleanser and Watermelon Glow Sleeping Mask; the raucous jury in my head is still hearing evidence on the sleeping mask but has sent in a verdict in the case of the cleanser.
Fifty Shades of Snail 