Oooh hello skincare and beauty haul, it’s been a while. For the most part, my skin has been a bit temperamental over the last month and a bit, I’ve had a few hormonal/stress related breakouts, and I kind of upset the balance of something around July that certainly did not make my skin happy at all. I’ve also been consuming more sugar and less water again (dammit), so I’ve been on the hunt for things that are calming, soothing, and as always, down for making me look less tired.

Innisfree and The Face Shop are two of my most loved Korean brands. I swear by The Face Shop’s rice water range for cleansing, and Innisfree have a lot of really naturally infused products. They’re brands that I’d definitely suggest checking out if you’re looking at trying Korean beauty and skincare products, as they are also super affordable. CosRX is a brand that I’ve been really keen to try, but have never really got round to. Until now.

Innisfree

The justification for even stepping in the store was: I needed a new eye cream. Eye creams are something that I’m really bad at forgetting to use, so I’m usually really happy when I get one as a sample. I do enjoy using Skinfood’s Yuja Water Vita Eye Serum, but I’m not super happy with it being a whitening product, and I haven’t been reaching for it even though it smells great and is refreshing on my skin. So clearly my logic of getting a new eye cream is definitely sound. Totally.

Anyway, get one I did; The Green Tea Seed Eye Cream is now mine, and so far I have used it a grand total of five times? The formula is super thick and hydrating – definitely best for wearing at night rather than throughout the day – and I have seen a reduction in how dry and thirsty my under eye skin has been feeling. Paired with drinking enough water daily, this will probably really help keep my poor eyes hydrated.

I also decided to get two of their color play clay masks. These were being advertised by the boy group made from the boys version of produce101, if you’re interested, but the incentive for me to get one… or two, was because if you buy two yOU GET THE CUTEST LITTLE HEADBAND. And I am a sucker for free gifts. I got green and black; the black is a charcoal base for purifying, the green is cica, which is supposed to be great for sensitive skin and healing imperfections, especially scarring. The masks are supposed to be used in a ‘multi-masking’ way, which is basically marketing to get you to buy the whole set, but I really like them to be honest. The two I have work really well for my skin – Innisfree product are a great brand if you have sensitive skin – and I’ve been enjoying using them as a single mask, or in a multi-masking way.

Everything else I got from innisfree were gift-with-purchase samples. More from their green tea line; the green tea balancing skin (toner) and the green tea balancing lotion. I love getting toner and emulsion or moisturiser samples as purchase gifts, they’re great for travelling, or for taking to Korean spas so you don’t have to buy any there or take full sized products. Samples for the rest of the green tea seed were in my bag too; the green tea balancing cleansing oil will be interesting to try since I’ve moved away from cleansing oils at the moment to give my skin a bit of a break, and the green tea seed serum will be good to incorporate into my more thorough skincare days.  I also got sachets of the bija cica balm, which I have been eyeing up for purchase as it’s one of innisfree’s popular products at the moment.The final item was a blackberry sheet mask from the it’s real squeeze sheet mask range.

The Face Shop

The Face Shop is the home of my favoured Rice Water range (though there are other brands that carry rice-related products that work really well too), and I always like to have a pack of their cleansing tissues around to take with me on the go. Or, really, when I go into seoul and don’t want to take the bigger cleansing products with me. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll know I’m not the biggest fan of cleansing wipes or tissues, but honestly, the Korean brands are the only type I will buy. They’re way more saturated with the cleansing product, so there isn’t as much rubbing involved to take your makeup off, so less overall damage to your skin. They’re still not my favourite method of cleansing, but if I’m in a bind they’ll do. So I picked up the rice water bright cleansing wipes. They’re also super affordable, even for the bigger packs.

I’ve also been looking around for a primer recently. Usually, I just apply product directly to my face after my morning skincare, but recently I’ve found that having that barrier between skin and product is, uh, actually a really good thing to have. It always felt like a really unnecessary step, but I had a few of Etude House’s Fix & Fix primer to try in Lavender, and have liked how it’s made my makeup look, although it hasn’t been best for my skin. I’ve been eyeing up the 3CE velvet priming base for a while, but have never quite been able to justify the price, and then I saw this Velvet Skin Primer Velvet Base in The Face Shop instead, so I had to pick it up. So far I’ve really enjoyed using it.

The product I actually went to find a store to purchase was the Rich Water Bright Lip & Eye Makeup Remover. My everyday makeup isn’t particularly fancy, but I’ve been suffering from milia again in my undereye area due to the fact that I’ve not been taking my eye makeup off properly. Oops. Most Korean cleansers state that they are not to be used around the eye area, unless they are specifically designed to be, so I kinda needed to get this. It’s a dual formula, so you shake to combine the oil and the milk inside to create a cleanser that easily removes eye makeup, pain free. It’s the only one of these that I have tried, so I don’t have any comparisons, but I like it. It doesn’t break me out, and takes my eye makeup off quickly.

My final purchase from The Face Shop was a hand cream  in Snow Cotton. Despite the raging summer humidity, my hands haven’t been feeling the best in the last few months and I’ve been getting through my Crabtree & Evelyn tubes fast. I don’t like the idea of not having a hand cream to go once I’ve finished the last of my current hand cream, so decided to pick this one up in preparation. The scents The Face Shop do mostly sound quite pretty, and they smell really good. I decided to go for sow cotton, since it’s quite a light but clean scent. I haven’t tried any of their hand creams before either, so I’m hoping that it doesn’t aggravate my eczema or feel too thick.

The samples I got were a double set of the The Therapy Essential Tonic Treatment and Essential Formula Emulsion. Both contain anti-aging properties (well), and are from a ‘European Blending Formula’ apparently. Again, minis like this are fab for travelling, and I’m compiling quite the collection.

cosRX

CosRX is a brand that I’ve been interested in for a really long time, but haven’t found the means (or the willpower) to purchase until now. They’re stocked in a range of stores here, from Olive Young to Aland, and I’ve always been attracted to them because of the super cute packaging and the promised of the formula. Hannah was wanting to try them out too, so we took advantage of the Olive Young special double packs of the One Step Original Clear Pad (including stickers), and went halves. One for her, one for me. This product is a toner, and you get 70 pads in one tub; it claims to ‘gently wipe out excess oil and keep the complexion clear, refined, and well-balanced’. I’ve heard great things about their other skincare products, so I’m hoping that this will do what it says on the tub. Also, the stickers were really cute, ty Hannah for letting me keep them.

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I haven’t really added much else in the last couple of days other than sheet masks (I can never have enough…) and a couple of ‘point item’ makeup bits that I’ll share with you in the next week, I think! Let me know if you have tried any of these products before; if you have, what did you think? If you haven’t which would you like to try!

As always, the easiest place to catch me is over on my instagram, you can follow all of my day-to-day in Korea snaps, and see all my outfits and fashion hauls first 😉

(Also, why not give my youtube channel a sub too, videos are starting again from this weekend!)

♥

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