Korean 5 Step Skin Care Regimen

This post is for those of you not familiar with the Korean 5 step routine.

1. Double Cleansing - This step entitles first cleansing with cleansing oil and then regular cleanser.

2. Mask/Massage - Massaging is very important because it increase circulation and keeps your skin healthy and with a beautiful glow. On the days you do not massage you use a mask (or in my case I sometimes exfoliate).

3. Tone - Tone your face thoroughly to remove any leftover residue.

4. Essence - Essence is another word for serum. Serums are highly concentrated treatments created to correct different skin issues (such as dark spots, wrinkles, etc.).

5. Moisturizer - Lastly apply your favorite moisturizer after your serum has been completely absorbed. This typically takes 5-10 minutes.

There you have it. This is a very easy routine to follow and in my opinion very effective.

My Skin Care Routine

I thought I would post my skin care routine for those of you curious to know what products I'm currently using. Just so you guys know I follow the Korean 5 step skin care routine - with the exception of double cleansing. I've listed the general steps and then at the end I listed all the products I use.

Daytime Routine:

Since my skin has suddenly become combination over the summer I've reduced the amount of things I do for the daytime just to avoid breakouts and overall oily skin.

1. In the shower I splash warm water on my face to open up my pores and proceed to cleanse. I rinse the cleanser off with warm water and then right at the end I splash cold water on my face to tighten up my pores.

2. I apply eye cream. If my eyes are puffy I apply an eye gel prior to the cream.

3. I use toner.

4. Once I feel that the toner has completely dried I apply a pump of serum.

5. To finish up I use a mattefying moisturizer with spf.

For days when I use makeup or even just BB cream, I leave out the moisturizer or else my face feels too oily.

Nighttime Routine:

My bedtime routine is a bit more extensive.

1. I splash warm water on my face to open up my pores. I rub the cleanser on my face and work it in for a few minutes making sure to concentrate on my problematic areas (nose and chin). Then I rinse with cold water.

2. I pat my face dry and follow up with toner unless it is one of the nights I do a mask or exfoliate. If that is the case I'll do that first

3. If I did a mask then I'll take this step to use toner. If not, I move straight to applying eye cream.

4. I rub an acne spot treatment on the areas I get the most acne and/or blackheads.

5. When the acne treatment has fully dried I apply 2 different serums right after.

6. When the serums have dried I apply a correcting moisturizer.

7. Lastly I apply a wrinkle correcting serum on the areas where the first signs of aging tend to appear first (eyes, mouth, forehead, etc.).

The products I use are as follow:

Daytime

Purity by Philosophy Cleanser
Kiehl's Creamy Eye Treatment with Avocado and 40 Carrots Retinol-Rich Skin Care Carrot + Cucumber Eye Gel (if needed)
Shiseido Hadasui Skin and Body Lotion or Kiehl's Cucumber Herbal Alcohol-Free Toner (I alternate my toners daily).
Naruko Niaouli & Tea Tree Balancing Serum
hope in a jar oil-free spf 30 moisturizer (prefer Cosmedicines mattefying lotion)

Nighttime

Clean & Clear deep action cream cleanser sensitive skin oil-free
Shiseido Hadasui Skin and Body Lotion or Kiehl's Cucumber Herbal Alcohol-Free Toner
Kiehl's Creamy Eye Treatment with Avocado
Kiehl's Blue Herbal Spot Treatment (not the best but doing the job)
Naruko Niaouli & Tea Tree Balancing Serum
Kiehl's Powerful-Strength Line-Reducing Concentrate
Kiehl's Acai Damage-Correcting Moisturizer
RoC Retinol Correxion Deep Wrinkle Serum

The Kiehl's Creamy Eye Treatment is a sample I got (a few samples actually). I normally use RoC Retinol Correxion Eye Cream. When I remember, I also use Kiehl's Ultra Moisturizing Eye Stick SPF 30 during the day - obviously.

Masks, exfoliants, and blackhead removers I currently use:

Queen Helene Mint Julep Masque
Boots Botanics Conditioning Clay Mask
boscia Luminizing Black Mask
St. Clare Facial Treatment Set
Amore Pacific Enzyme Peel
Deary Co-Q10 & Vit. C Mask
Plain Oatmeal

Shikai Natural Tea Tree Shampoo

I really wanted to love this shampoo. I wanted to leave the common drugstore brands that strip your hair and use something more natural. This was horrible. I've never had so much dandruff and scabs on my scalp. Sorry for sharing so much but it's true. I usually get hives when I'm allergic to something and I have the bad habit of scratching thus resulting in scabs. I honestly have no idea why this happened. Could it be that my scalp prefers sulfates and parabens? This shampoo, as the title states, has tea tree oil in it as well as peppermint oil. I have other products that have tea tree in them (such as a serum I put on my face) and I haven't had any reaction so it could very will be that I'm allergic to peppermint oil. Regardless my experience with this shampoo was plain out bad. Finally I couldn't take the itch anymore and I went back to using my John Frieda shampoo and conditioner. It's really unfortunate because I rather enjoyed the tingly sensation I would get every time I used the Shikai shampoo. The smell is also nice. You can definitely smell a hint of tea tree but it's mostly a minty smell.

I'm not giving up on using natural/organic shampoos... I just need to find one that doesn't make me want to rip my scalp off lol.

Clean & Clear deep action cream cleanser sensitive skin

It's been nearly a month since I purchased Clean & Clear's deep action cream cleanser sensitive skin and I thought it was about time that I reported back on how I feel about it.

Before starting I wanted to talk about the recent change my skin has undergone. Since I got into skincare I always considered myself a dry/sensitive skin person - more like that is what my dermatogolist told me. But, for some crazy reason or more like weather, my skin has gone from dry to combination. It's pretty annoying since every single product I have purchased until now has been for dry skin. As you can imagine my skin suddenly broke out in the most horrible way it has ever broken out and my forehead looked like I could cook stuff on it. Silly as I can be I just kept putting on all the stuff I usually do and sat there wondering why my problem wasn't getting better. In the end I stopped using everything for two days and followed my mom's suggestion of doing a quick wash (I'll post the ingredients for this effective wash soon) and then placing potato on my trouble areas - yes the same kind you eat. Since then my face has been slowly recovering. I've also pretty much stopped using everything I owned and got a few new things. Lucky for me I have tons of samples just sitting around for combination skin (I'll also get into that later on). I don't know if the change is permanent but I'm hoping it isn't. I rather have dry skin over oily any day.

Now on to the review...

Although this cleanser comes in a cream form it is oil free and hasn't made my current combination skin any worse. In fact not only does it rinse off without leaving any residue behind it always leaves my face feeling tingly and perfectly moisturized. It isn't an acne fighting wonder per say but I can say that it has kept my existing break outs under control and I haven't seen any new ones come up as of yet. I really love this cleanser and have been using it every single night since I purchased which is pretty strange for me since I typically alternate my cleansers nightly - what can I say I have a mini cleanser collection going. This cleanser comes in two different versions with one of those being made for sensitive skin. The bottles are 100% identical with the only difference being that the title ends with "sensitive skin". So far what it claims to do has been true because I haven't had a single hive or dry patch since I've been using it. At times I even forget it has salicylic acid in it. The ingredients list is really small compared to other cleansers out there, so even though it isn't organic like my Boscia cream cleanser it's still good in my book. I highly recommend this cleanser for any skin type that has minimal acne issues. And, If you do decide you want to give this exact cleanser a try your best bet is to order from Walmart.com. For some reason the senstive skin one isn't really available in stores. On the plus side the shipping will be free, the price is really low ($4-5), and if you get lucky like I did you will get a bag full of samples.

iMomoko Anniversary Sale!

Because of their anniversary imomoko.com is currently offering 10% off your entire purchase if you enter promo code ANNIVERSARY before checkout. Many of you know that iMomoko is one of the best places online to shop for Korean, Japanese, and Taiwanese skin care products. This promotion ends on June 12th so do not hesitate to run over there and get some stuff - shipping is free on orders over $50. Happy shopping!

Boscia BB Cream Review

I wont beat around the bush in my opinion this BB cream sucks. Thankfully I didn't waste my time buying it because Sephora is usually pretty awesome about giving samples. Why do I think it sucks? It has glitter, that's right, glitter. By now most of us know that glitter is the enemy seeing as it gets into all the fine lines and it makes you look old. Why the hell did Boscia even add glitter? Are they trying to make us look like cheap versions of "Twilight" vampires? Seriously though, not only was it loaded with glitter it has an awful gray undertone. When it finally settled into my skin it sort of looked like a match but with a noticeable gray cast. It was weird. And it just sunk into every fine line. I'm 26 and I felt old -___-. I'm pretty disappointed because up to now I was a fan of the Boscia line (YAY for organic) but they need to leave BB cream making to the experts and just stick to what they know.

If you are interested in trying it out for yourself just click on one of the links below:

Sephora

Amazon

Boscia

If you enter the promo code babyBB at the Boscia website you get a free 0.35oz mini BB cream with your purchase of $30 or more. The normal size cream itself is $38 at all three sites.