Current Skincare Routine 2016: Cleansing Care

Alas, I am back. I have been gone since last year and now I'm finally free to post (actually I was free since almost 4 weeks ago but I was lazy because I FINALLY GOT MY GOD DAMN BREAK). I actually finished Cheese in the Trap, Oh My Ghostess, Oh My Venus and am currently watching Signal and Descendents of the Sun. These 2 shows are seriously good you guys have to watch it!! And apparently DOTS is so popular in China that the Chinese government had to warn their people not to get too addicted to it. And who wouldn't fall in love with the main characters? Song Joong Ki, Song Hye Kyo (Laneige's product placement on point btw), Jin Goo and Kim Ji Won. All the good looking celebrities! The only actor I didn't know of was Jin Goo and boy is he hot. Hehe. Oh My Venus is a great drama too! So Ji Sub (mmmmmmm hot) and the beautiful Shin Minah (O HUI's product placement is on point too bahaha). Anyways, of all the dramas I watched I really love all of the main characters and even some side characters!

Okay, enough of my drama talk and let's move on to what I'm here for today! As you can see from the title, I'll be talking about my skincare routine! I'll be breaking it up into 3 parts: Cleansing Care, Actual Care and Special Care.

Before I start, I would like to inform you guys that I'll be turning 19 years old (if you haven't read my profile) and I have combination skin, with an oily (not super oily) T-Zone and dry cheeks (not the flaking kind). And also, my routine is not a 100% AB routine. It's about 96% AB? And these are the products that I use for my cleansing routine:

AM:
1. Innisfree Bija Trouble Cleansing Gel

PM:
1. Innisfree Green Tea Pure Cleansing Water
2. Innisfree Apple Juice Lip & Eye Remover
3. Son & Park Beauty Water
4. Lee Ji Ham Tea Tree 30 Cleanser
5. Neutrogena Pore Refining Toner

In the morning, when I wake up, I use the Innisfree Bija Trouble Cleansing Gel (KBeauty products need to stop with their super duper long product names :')) to wash off any oil and residue from the skincare products I used the night before. This cleansing gel is actually a makeup remover, but from what I read on the Asian Beauty section of Reddit, it seems like this cleansing gel IS NOT effective in removing makeup. Yes, it is that gentle. :) Not to mention that it has a low pH of 3 as well. Yay! I always use this to wash my hands after applying my waterproof sunblock, and it washes it off pretty well so I guess this would be a great, mild and gentle 1st cleanser for those who only wears sunblock or on days where you only put on sunblock, but it works as a second cleanser too! Either way, this cleansing gel removes any oil and residue on my face, yet doesn't leave it dry, which is great because it doesn't strip away excess moisture that my skincare products have provided my skin throughout the night.

Innisfree Bija Trouble Cleansing Gel

Ahhhhh. Evening time. This is where I get busy.

When I reach home, I first use Innisfree's Green Tea Pure Cleansing Water (phew, that was another long ass name) to remove my makeup, which I usually only consists of BB cushion, eyebrows, blush and highlighter. If I do put on any eye makeup, I'll use Innisfree's Apple Juicy Lip & Eye Remover. Oh I also use the Lip & Eye remover to remove my lip makeup.

Innisfree Green Tea Pure Cleansing Water

Innisfree Apple Juicy Lip & Eye Remover

I then spritz some Son & Park Beauty Water on my face (I transferred the product to a spray bottle) and wipe it off with a cotton pad to remove any makeup residue.

Son & Park Beauty Water

Aaaand my 2nd cleanser would be - you guessed it - Lee Ji Ham's Tea Tree 30 Cleanser. I really love this cleanser and recently bought a new one as I'm almost finished with my first one. The pH for this cleanser is 6.5 (without water). To me, it's not that bad of a pH for a cleanser but I would probably like it to be a little lower, since you know when mixed with water the pH of the cleanser would be a little higher. I have yet to get pH strips to test my tap water yet but I will, soon.

Lee Ji Ham Tea Tree 30 Cleansing Foam

Last but not least, the final step of my cleansing routine would be using a pH adjusting toner - Neutrogena Pore Refining Toner - which I have been using for years until I realised late last year about how pH in skincare products affects our skin's acid mantle. So far this has been my favourite toner for about 4-5 years and I've been through bottles of this. This toner contains AHA and BHA to exfoliate and remove any dead skin cells, although I'm pretty sure with the concentration of AHA and BHA in this toner, it doesn't do any form of exfoliation, hence it is just being used as a pH adjusting toner. I think I'll email Neutrogena and ask them for the concentration of AHA and BHA in this toner and I'll come back and edit this post again. :) But either way, don't get confused between "pore refining" and "pore minimising"! In fact, you can't minimise your pores. Check out this post from Fiddy from FiftyShadesOfSnail! Pore refining simply means that it will clean the pores from excess dirt/sebum and dead skin cells.

Neutrogena Pore Refining Toner

And there you go! This is part 1 of my skincare routine: Cleansing Care! How does your cleansing routine go?


Disclaimer: All products are bought with my own money and all the photos above are taken by me.

Beauty, is Skin Deep. Beauty, knows No Colour.

P.S. I'll try to get a post up about my current skincare routine before I fly off on Sunday! :-) If I can't I'll type out a post on the plane and post up when I arrive in Seoul!

That was what I said almost 2 months ago. :-') I'm so sorry. I've been so busy with school (learning how to code a HTML banner and responsive web is TORTUROUS) and I'm only about 1/4 into composing the post on my skincare routine but I doubt I can finish it anytime soon. It'll be my holiday in about 2 weeks' time so I'l use the time then to finish up the posts and hopefully, along with some reviews. :)

As you can see from the title, I will be touching a little about skin colour.

As a child, I've ALWAYS been judged by my skin colour. I was born pretty dark, because of the genes from the paternal side of my family. All I've heard since I could understand human language was, "Omg you're so dark! Omg you're so ugly!" Do you know how hurtful it is to hear your dance teacher tell you, "You're so dark and ugly. But I have to put you at the front because you're short." As a 9 year old, I was hurt. I was fucking hurt. Do these people even have any feelings at all..? You're telling that to a 9 year old?

The question is,"Whose fault is it?" Did I ask to be born dark? Did I ask to be born ugly? Nope I didn't. I then asked them, "Then why do you guys have to have such bad genes?" But it isn't their fault either. Nobody's at fault. Nobody can choose how they want to look like. I was brought up to believe that being tanned and dark was ugly. But now? No. Not because I'm all grown up and I'm not dark and tanned like I used to be, but because I believe that beauty, is skin deep, and that beauty, knows NO colour. 

Beyonce is Beautiful.
Cara Delevingne is Beautiful.
Tyra Banks is Beautiful.
Scarlett Johansson is Beautiful.
Jennifer Lawrence is Beautiful.
Oprah Winfrey is Beautiful.

And YOU, girl, are beautiful (Guys, you're beautiful too, or handsome, if you'd like that better). Don't let anyone tell you you're not.

How do skin colour or a pretty face decide if you're truly beautiful or not? You don't have to have a pretty face to be beautiful. There are many ways to be beautiful. For example, my mom's not the prettiest woman on Earth but she's one of the most beautiful person I've ever seen in my life, despite all the arguments at times, lol. She's strong, she's kind, she's smart and she loves my family and I. That's beautiful. To me.

What's your definition of beauty?

How I got into Skincare

Do you guys remember how you got into skincare? Because I do.

I first started getting interested in skincare because of my Dad. I remember I was pretty young then, around 8 or 9 years old? And nope I did not start applying skincare products at that age hahaha. It was just that my Dad was sooooo interested in skincare and he had LOTS of skincare products, ranging from masks to serums, from moisturisers to mists and even SK-II! I think it's also partially because he had a lot of friends who are gay, and hence they kind of influenced him and tadahhh that's probably how he started getting interested in skincare. My Mum in the past, however, wasn't interested in skincare AT ALL. Even when my Dad bought her some skincare products she never bothered to use them. But I would say it's a totally different story now hahaha. She goes for facials and uses products given by her dermatologist. I'm actually really happy that she started to take care of herself :)

Anyway, as I was saying, the spark in me first got ignited by my Dad, as I was curious as to how these products could make a difference to your skin. Magic? Miracle? As a kid, I didn't know. My Dad would mask regularly, and put on his skincare products religiously everyday. I remember there was once when I was around 9 or 10 years old, I made warm honey water and applied it to my face, thinking that it would make my skin better, which of course it would because it's honey, but at that time I didn't know anything about skincare at all and I have no idea how I even thought of applying honey water to my face. Born a skincare genius, I suppose? :P At that point, even though a certain spark in me was ignited, other than that one honey water experiment, I didn't really care about skincare until I turned 14.

I remember when I was 14, I had really bad acne on my forehead and chin area. I started having acne since I was 13, but it was only when I turned 14 that my acne got really, really bad. It was then that my Mum and I discovered (lol) The Face Shop, and we got some products recommended by the Beauty Advisor. I think it was the older version of the Clean Face line if I didn't remember it wrongly. The packaging used to be green but I think they reformulated it (not really sure) and they've also repackaged it to a brown packaging. Either way, that helped my skin. I vaguely remember using this Clean & Clear set which comes with a cleanser, toner, moisturiser and pimple cream and that was a life saver as well. I also remember trying out a few more products from The Face Shop and some other products I bought when I was in Korea as well, one of which Taeyeon from SNSD used to endorse.

But alas, the acne was gone, but the horrible scars remain. I googled up on how to remove the scars and I started using lemon juice and honey as a mask, along with exfoliating regularly. The scars slowly faded away as I turned 16 and it was finally gone! But now I have new scars from hormonal acne (-_-) which is clearing up a little faster as I'm now 18 and have found some ways and products that helps me to clear my acne. I'm constantly on the look out for home remedies and trying out new products that helps my skin. Right now I'm on the look out for products that helps to refine my skin texture and minimise the size of my pores. Which brings me to the point that I'll be flying off to Seoul this coming Sunday and I'll be bringing back lotsa stuff /inserts moonface/

Do you guys remember how and when you got into skincare? :)

P.S. I'll try to get a post up about my current skincare routine before I fly off on Sunday! :-) If I can't I'll type out a post on the plane and post up when I arrive in Seoul!

Inflight Beauty Tips

Photo from: Flickr/Gareth Lewis

So, I'm sure everyone knows that flying in planes can be be really harmful to your skin as it could dry out your skin. The reason why your skin gets dried out is because the air in an airplane cabin is moisture-free, and hence it'll draw out moisture from wherever it can, which also means it can draw out moisture from your skin. This is kinda like Biology. Like how you pour some salt on a slice of watermelon that is on a plate, and the next thing you know, you'll see watermelon juice on the plate. So this process is actually diffusion, since osmosis requires a partially permeable membrane. Since I'm flying off to Seoul next week, here are some tips that I have to help you combat with this horrible, moisture-free air while you fly.

1. Makeup

It's alright if you want to put on makeup while travelling to the airport, but remember to remove it before you board the plane or after you board the plane but before the plane takes off. If the plane flight's only about an 1 hour, then it'll probably be fine but if it's more than that, it will be better to remove it. The makeup can cause cause clogged pores, which will then lead to breakouts.

2. Hydrate

Hydration is very, very important and I cannot emphasize this enough. If you don't hydrate yourself, your skin would be super, super dry, which could cause dry skin to flake, and cause oily skin to become even oiler as the skin is so dry that it produces more oil in order to beat the dryness. So drink up!! Do not consume alcohol as it will only dry out your skin further.

3. Moisturize

Since hydration is important, moisturizing is definitely important as well. Board the plane with a deep moisturizing cream or a sleeping mask. Likewise, you can also bring a long a piece of sheet mask. For me, I'll be bringing along a deep moisturising cream and a sleeping mask.

4. The Night Before

The night before you fly is very important as well. Make sure you drink up, and apply lotion on your body, along with a moisturising facial mask for your face. Remember to condition your hair and give it a good round of masking. I always apply hair oil on my hair after washing it.

5. Eyes

The skin around your eyes are very thin, and hence they get dried out very quickly. I would recommend bringing along eyes mask sheets and also eye cream to reapply every now and then to keep the area around your eyes hydrated.

6. Mist

Some people say that facial mist will only dry out your skin on the flight, which is true if you DON'T pat the mist into your skin. If you don't pat the mist into your skin, the dry air in the cabin will suck up the moisture from the mist along with the moisture in your skin. So make sure to pat it in!

7. Lip Balm

Lip balms are so important. I cannot live without my lip balm because my lips dry out super fast. Make sure to apply loads of lip balm! Or you can also apply some eye cream onto your lips.

8. Hand Cream

Hand creams are optional, but if you have dry skin or dry hands, you would probably want to bring this along. Better yet, bring along a pair of cotton gloves for a hand mask!


Here are some of the things that I would personally be doing myself to keep my skin moisturized even on-board the flight. What are your inflight beauty tips?