I never thought I'd say this, but I did some korean skincare shopping. For the longest time I just wouldn't get the hype around korean skincare and beauty products but one day it just hit me. I started buying sheet masks and somehow ended up completely obsessing over korean skincare. Honestly, have you ever seen asians and their beautiful skin? They must be doing something right.
In Asia a lot of people do a 10-step skincare routine which might sound excessive and extremely time consuming but I wanted to try it out anyway. The 10-step skincare routine consists of
1. Oil Cleanser
2. Water/Foam Cleanser
3. Exfoliator
4. Toner
5. Essence
6. Serum
7. Sheet Mask
8. Eye Cream
9. Moisturizer
10. Sunscreen
Of course you can adjust it to your skin's needs, for example you can skip the double cleansing and only cleanse once if you haven't been wearing any make up on your face that day. You could also skip the sheet mask or don't apply a sunscreen in the nighttime.
As my first step, I decided to with The Face Shop and their Rice Water Bright Light Cleansing Oil because it has really good reviews. When you just start out with korean skincare and have absolutely no clue what you're doing, the best thing to do is go by the reviews and see what's popular.
For the second step, I went with the COSRX "Low pH Good Morning Gel Cleanser" because I thought in the mornings, this one would be great to just use alone without the oil cleanser.
After the double cleanse, you follow up with a exfoliator. If you want to use a chemical or a physical exfoliator is up to you, but preferably you want to use a chemical exfoliator. I chose to go with the Secret Key "Lemon Sparkling Peeling Gel". It's supposed to literally peel off the dead skin cells while you massage it into your skin which sounded quite satisfying.
After the first three steps that clean your skin, you can now start with moisturizing your skin. First off you start with a toner which I got the COSRX "Galactomyces Alcohol-Free Toner". What made me buy this one were not only the good reviews but also the fact that it is in a spray bottle which just makes is so easy to use and only takes a second to do.
The fifth step is the essence, which is basically like a toner, a watery consistency that helps to moisturize and make other products absorb better into the skin. Once again I went with the Secret Key brand and their Starting Treatment Essence (Rose Edition).
I also decided to skip buying a serum because I still have my The Ordinary Hyaluronic Acid 2%+B5 to use up and I just wanted to use this one up before buying a korean brand serum.
As my eye cream I'm going to be using the Laneige "Eye Sleeping Mask" that I got in a little sample set with their Water Sleeping Mask and also the Lip Sleeping Mask. Laneige is a well known brand that can also get a little expensive so I just thought I'd buy a little sample kit, since an eye cream is going to last a bit longer anyway, plus I'm obsessed with moisturizing my lips too haha
For the ninth step I also skipped buying a korean product for now because I still have my all time favourite L'Oreal Skin Perfection moisturizer. I think it's important to keep a few products in your routine that your skin is already used to, just to make sure you're not overstraining your skin with all these intense new products. Especially with moisturizer for me, they often tend to break me out so keeping my trusty old L'Oreal one just makes me feel a bit more safe.
For me personally, I decided to skip the sunscreen completely just because I never get along with any of them, especially on my face and with a 10-step skincare routine, I don't have the patience to try out thousands of new ones to find one I might like. I can always add the SPF to my routine later on.
Once I have tried out the 10-step skincare routine for a good amount of time, I'll definitely update on the products and how I feel about them. Maybe we have some new skincare favourites in here.
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