Skincare, beauty, mental health, productivity, and hamster butts
Lately I keep thinking about how long I’ve been using and writing about Korean skincare. It’s been a looong time. Almost ten years, to be exact. I wandered into Reddit’s Skincare Addiction community sometime in 2013 and very quickly followed the mysterious mentions of “Korean snail essence” to the much smaller but already fervently dedicated [...]
Skincare as self care has obviously been one of the unifying themes of my whole accidental skincare blogging and content creation and book writing journey. But although I've talked a ton about the mental benefits of establishing and sticking to a skincare routine, I haven't talked as much about the external rewards of a successful [...]
It's that time of year again! The clocks have shifted back an hour, darkness falls before 6pm, Mariah Carey has risen from her slumber to lay claim to her rightful season of power, and the days have begun their inexorable march to that date that basically every brand and retailer in the United States waits [...]
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 [...]
Recognize the signs of overexfoliation and learn how to treat and prevent it for improved skin health.
There's a fine, fine line between effective exfoliation and too much exfoliation. (Finer than the fine lines that we're trying to minimize here.) Finding that line can be a challenge, since it's so fine and its location varies so much from person to person. Some people do best with little to no exfoliation. Others like to use [...]
I have a complicated relationship with AHAs. They're some of the most proven actives around for my skin concerns (brightening and anti-aging), but over the past year, I've looked for ways to pull back on them rather than go harder. Thanks to prescription tretinoin, I generally seek out products to strengthen my barrier rather than further thin it [...]
The most recent episode of the Snailcast was all about acids and how to exfoliate safely and effectively, and I'm super bummed because I wasn't able to join thanks to moving hassles. But the topic got me thinking about acids and reminded me that I've been doing mine in a different way than I used to. A [...]
Previously: Part 1: Classics and New Faves | Part 2: Best and Worst Ginseng Skincare This final installment of my spring/summer 2016 skincare routine update took me a very long time to write because so much has been happening with my life and my skin! Which sounds dire but in reality isn't. Even when I've been let down by something I'd been [...]
I don't usually do Instagram review roundups because I like to give you guys different things on different sites. I have a (half-assed but deliberate) system for deciding what goes where. But I don't want anyone to miss out on the launch of the Mask Party sheet mask set at my favorite Taiwan-focused boutique AB shop, Beautibi! The products featured in [...]
Fifty Shades of Snail 