Venturing into Korean Skincare: Part 1

I… am not a beauty junkie. In fact, I am so lazy to slather things on my face/body that I often wonder if I was a man in my past life. *JOKING!!!!*

Ok. The point is. I am lazy. Full stop.

Of course I love to look beautiful like any other normal woman but man…! It took a lot of effort! Le sigh. And there’s like millions of products in the market to choose from, addressing various skin needs made me confuse. A lot.

First of all, I don’t even know the condition of my skin. Dry? Checked. Oily? Checked? Dry patches? Checked. Spots? Checked. Acne? CHECKED. Uneven skin tone? Checked. Whitehead? Checked.

So, my skin profile is???? *crick crick*

I tried most of the cheap or moderately priced skincare products we got in Malaysian market.

Hazeline snow? Hell yeah. Who didn’t use this thing?

Oh, how I kinda miss you! My mom used to use this!

Fair and Lovely. Nivea Visage line. L’Oreal. What else. Erm. Clean & Clear. Garnier. Nuetrogena. Simple.

They were fine. My skin were accepting them nicely. Back from UK, my face breaks out. I don’t know whether it was because of weather or is it because my age is catching up. Yikes. Anyhow, my trusted Nivea cleanser won’t do the trick. Acne came and go. My dry patches go worse. If I am unlucky, flakes of dry skin were everywhere. And don’t start on the whitehead. Grrrrr…

I tried Clinique. The cleanser and toner made my dry skin even flakier. Is that even possible? XD But I LOVE LOVE their moisturizer. Looking at the bright side, I only have to purchase the moisturizer, which is priced at RM170 for 200ml. Quite steep, yes. But it lasts for 6 months and it works.

My trusted confidante. I am on my 3rd bottle.

So the hunt continues. Then I saw an advertisement on Cleo. That’s when I am sort of introduced to b.liv skincare product. I was like, let’s try this. I talked about getting few products from b.liv in this post.

Sample which I didn't try till this date, off with those heads and squeaky clean scrub

While I absolutely adore and love Off With Those Head, the scrub, Squeaky Clean was just meh. OWTH made my nose blackhead and whitehead free, without pain! Priced at RM139.00 for ONLY 30 ml… it is no rocket science that I will not repurchase.

Then I started breaking out again. It pissed me off big time. So I picked up no spots bye dots, a cleanser from b.liv which is RM79.90 for 130 ml.

picture from b.liv website

While it did prevent new acne from appearing, old ones stay. Which is, weird to anyone standard. I kept using it and I am on my second bottle. My skin tone is still uneven, dry patches come and go, and my whitehead stays.

Then I think enough is enough (ha! I sounded so dramatic). I told myself I. MUST. FIND. SOMETHING. FOR. MY. FACE. Or else I’ll look 40 when I am really in my late twenties. I made up my mind when I purchased this sample size of Estee Lauder Advanced Night Repair, which was lauded by so many beauty bloggers alike. I wanted to try if it will work wonder on my skin.

The Holy Grail for some, but for me....?

The first time I used it, my skin breaks out. *pulls hair* My b.liv cleanser did nothing to stop it. Then I stopped using ANR. My skin gets back to normal, which are marred by spots, dry patches and oily nose + whitehead. The best combo ever.

Until this one fateful evening, while waiting for hubby at work, I opened YouTube and stumbled across a video called Miss A’s Suzy Beauty Regime. 424 which is, clean your face with cleansing oil/cream for 4 minutes, then cleanse it with foam cleanser for 2 minutes, and wash with lukewarm water before finishing it off with cold water for 4 minutes. This method is generally called double cleansing (minus the timing).

I had my Eureka moment and was like, should I try this? I spent few days at home while breastfeeding Haifa, while in the toilet or while I had free time to browse and browse for products and its reviews. And of course, being a simple-minded person, I specifically searched for Korean skincare product to do this double cleansing method! *facepalm*

And because this entry it getting longer than I intended, please proceed to Part 2. ^^



Cik Atun: It's good to be simple minded once in a while. Theee...