May 2015 Purchases & Empties

I had quite a few purchases this month, mostly skincare since I'm on a makeup no-buy. (The makeup products shown here are bought before May 10th when I decided to start a Project 10 Pan and go on a no-buy) It's kind of crazy that I ran out of so many skincare products at once, I almost went bankrupt.

The Saem Eco Earth Power Light Sun Cream *2 (it was on buy 1 get 1 free)

I got this to carry around and use on my body. This is a really light, moisturizing sunscreen. I would use this on my face too, but usually any sunscreen with abobenzone (a.k.a. Butyl Methoxydibenzoylmethane or Parsol 1789) will burn my eyes so I can't use this on my face. One time I was out of my regular sunscreen so I just put on my other sunscreen on my face and by the time I was in class my eyes were all teary because they were hurting and the professor actually stopped his lecture, came up to me and asked if anything was wrong. lol

The Saem Perfumed Hand Clean Gel in Grace Peony

I just wanted a travel-size hand sanitizer. It smells nice and is surprisingly moisturizing. The color is clear purple if anyone is wondering.

The Saem Pure White Brightening Essence

I got this to replace my TonyMoly Floria Whitening Capsule Essence.

+ I got a spray bottle to use with my toner while I was buying at The Saem.

A'pieu Kissable Tint Stick in OR01

I looove this one. It's even on my Holy Grail Products list.

A'pieu Essential Source Salt Cream

Some time ago I got a sample of this product with purchase and I was like whaat? You put salt on your skin??? But one day I had to use this because I had no other moisturizer on hand and I actually really liked it. It's really moisturizing and although this has really thick consistency this is not oily at all! This is slowly saving my skin recently. My skin has been extremely dry unlike usual and at first I thought my skin was being crazy but apparently the Korea Meteorological Administration has put out dryness advisory all over the country including Seoul. Also, I didn't know it then (I don't really watch TV lol) but there was a dryness warning back in March and the last one before that was 24 years ago. No wonder my skin was suffering unprecedented uber-dryness. We did have rain yesterday so hopefully it won't be so dry anymore?

The Face Shop Chia Seed Watery Lotion

I really like this lotion. It's pretty light but very moisturizing.

VDL Festival Eye Shadow Jelly in 606 Grand Prize

I got this when I went in for Color Intel™. Such a great cream eye shadow for daily use!

The Face Shop Real Nature Mask Rice & Shea Butter

I was trying to buy a bunch of face masks (I'm tired of buying small amounts often) and this happened to be on a buy 10 get 10 free thing, so. This will last me a while.

Little rant about The Face Shop employee: So this was buy 10 get 10 free so the actual amount I had to pay was 10000 won and after I walked out of the store, I realized that I was charged with 20000 won. Thank god I have an SMS service that texts me the amount charged and the money left in my bank account every time I use my card. Otherwise I might never have found out. I don't really check my receipts nor my bank statements. And so I go back to the store and asked her why, and she said the no store is just texting you the pre-discount price. I was like no, it's not the store, it's from the bank, 20000 won just got charged to my bank account. Then she just repeated her previous statement, so I actually had to show her the text while I dug through my shopping bag to find my receipt. I mean if she asked for receipt right away I would understand since you need the receipt to change the order and stuff, but it was as if she didn't believe me. Why the fuck wouldn't she believe me? And instead of apologizing she just went on and on about the system and stuff and I was like lady, I don't care why you did what you did just gimme my money back.

And now for Empties!

Neutrogena Deep Clean Hydrating Bamboo Cleanser

(excuse my Advanced Semiconductor Engineering lol)

I usually use whatever cleanser my mom buys and this was one of them. Since cleansers aren't meant to stay on my face or become absorbed into my skin I don't really think it matters as much, as long as it cleanses my skin and doesn't dry it out I'm satisfied. This was okay.

SOHAIR Morocco Argan Oil

I think it's okay. It's not life-changing or anything but it does make my hair a bit healthier. I don't even have long hair but I need A LOT of this product to cover the bottom half of my hair. (well these days using up products is exciting for me so I guess that's a plus for me) I have one deluxe sample size and one full size bottle in my drawer, so I'll use those, too. I'm not sure if I'd repurchase it myself. My mommy sometimes buy these when they sell like 4-5 bottles for a retail price for 1 and we split. I'll definitely use it again when she buys this again.

MISSCO Norugoong Signature Cream

Crappiest. Product. Ever. It takes forever to get absorbed, leaves sticky feeling, and doesn't moisturize. I mean seriously if it's not moisturizing enough for my body then it's a pretty crappy moisturizer.

Missha All-around Safe Block Essence Sun SPF45/PA+++

I cannot use sunscreen on my face if it contains abobenzone (well there is an exception but mostly) so I only use chemical sunscreens for my body. I have an issue though, I sometimes rub my eyes with my hand that has sunscreen on and my eyeballs will burn like hell. I did buy The Saem sunscreens (which also contain abobenzone) to replace this but after I finish those I might actually go back to using mineral sunscreens on my body. However if your eyes aren't sensitive to abobenzone, this is very light and moisturizing.

A'pieu Kissable Tint Stick SPF14/PA+ in MAGIC

This is my holy grail. As I mentioned above, I repurchased it in OR01.





Stuff that went to trash:

Innisfree Eco Gel Liner in 1 Black

Another crappy product! I barely used it but this is honestly soooo shitty. I would apply this and 2 seconds later it's all smeared and aaaalllll over the place before I could even set it with a shadow or powder. This is unusable so finding a new home would be pointless. Going straight to trashcan (well recycle bin to be exact).

USED UP: TONYMOLY Floria Whitening Capsule Essece + some rant about UV rays

An empty bottle of TonyMoly Floria Whitening Capsule Essence        

What it looks like when it's full (pic from the link above)

I purchased this product because I was in a dire need of some whitening. I'll get to that later. By the way whitening produts aren't anything like skin bleach or something. I doubt they're even sold in the market… Not legally, at least. Whitening products do lighten your skin a little bit, but they mainly even out your skin tone and reduce discoloration/hyperpigmentation.

I did like this one, it's pretty moisturing for a 'whitening essence'. It's quite mild and gentle, too. I did notice that my skin became brighter, but I was doing other things that could cause that effect so I can't say for sure if this is the only thing contributed to that, however I can definitely say that this helped.

I have one problem though. The capsule pops and particles come up with the liquid right? The particles doesn't really blend in. When I applied this onto my skin I realized that there were white balls of capsule contents left on my face. I can just rub it in, it's not a big deal, but I feel like if I do that the capsule contents won't be evenly spread all across my entire face. I don't get the capsule thing anyway. Can't they just mix entire thing altogether? That would probably make it more homogeneous.

I will buy something else from a different brand just for the sake of trying out different things, but if I don't find something better I'll probably come back to this one.

 

Now as to why I needed whitening.

I moved mid-November last year. Before that my bed was on the opposite side of the window, so farthest from the window as possible. When I moved, my mother decided to position my bed adjacent to the window, with the headboard pushed against the actual window. She thought I needed some more sun, which I clearly don't. No one needs skin cancer… Also, my mom won't let me pull up my sheets over my head (apparently it's bad for my breathing) or live with the blinds down. I mean why did she install them to begin with if she didn't want me to utilize them? (If you haven't noticed, my mother is one of those nature-is-the-best kind of people. Thank god she is not an anti-vaxxer)

So sometime during December, I ran into a person I had not seen since about August, and the first thing he said was,"Why are you so tanned?" It's weird, but my face really was that much darker. I thought it was strange because people are generally tanner during summer and paler during winter. Also as a person who applies sunscreen religiously and doesn't even see sunlight very much, I'm usually pretty light-skinned even during summer months. Therefore at that point I didn't think it was suntan. It's winter, I use sunscreen, and I don't even spend much time outside, so I can't possibly be more tanned than before, right? The weirdest thing was that it was just my face that got significantly darker, the rest of my body was pale.

I thought it was temporary at first but the darkness didn't go away after a couple months. So I thought there might be something wrong with my liver or kidney or whatever that was causing my face to look darker. I didn't think it was really about my skin. I went to the hospital and got this expensive bloodwork done, and surprisingly the result came back perfectly normal. It's a good thing that I'm healthy but back then I was freaking out because I didn't know the reason why my face changed color. I only knew that there was definitely something wrong with my skin because now it was very irritated and sensitive.

Then one day I woke up because of bright sunlight shining on my face and then I realized something. I didn't think much of the bed position before but when I came to think about it, I was being exposed to direct sunlight several hours a day between sunrise and when I wake up (I wake up pretty late except on Thursday when I have early morning class), without any sunscreen on since nobody puts on sunscreen before bed. That's why only the face got darker, because the rest of my body was covered with clothes and blankets and stuff. I literally had tan lines between my jawline and my neck. I was freaking out. The skin color will come back eventually if I avoid sun from then on, but what about the damage and aging that was already caused by UV rays? I also realized that the irritation my skin had was a mild sunburn. I didn't know what sunburn actually was like because I made sure I didn't get them, but now I do.

So I took some measures to avoid further damage. I couldn't move the bed now so I just put the blind down and told my mother that if she's gonna be so obsessed with "getting some sun" and put my blinds up (I mean it's my room so why does she even care) she's gonna have to roll it down before sunrise unless she wants her child to have skin cancer. (seems kinda threatening on written text but it really wasn't lol) I also got a whitening product to boost the skin lightening process, hence this review. Although it will come back to its normal color eventually with or without it, I just couldn't wait.


Moral of the story: Avoid sun exposure AT ALL COST!

p.s. Just in case someone gets a wrong idea, I don't avoid sun because of that 'white skin is good' mentality that some Asians might have. I do it because 1) UV rays are bad for your skin (I mean sure, they also give you vitamin D but you can just get that from food or supplements, no need to risk early wrinkles or skin cancer just for something that can be easily replaced.), 2) I don't want to get tan lines, I want my face to match my body, and 3) I just don't like the sun. Even if it was good for my health, I'd probably avoid it just because I hate it. (#vampirelyfe) I think I'll block the windows with wooden board when I get my own place.

You see, if my entire skin magically turned darker I wouldn't mind, (although I would have to get new makeup and even new clothes to match that) but getting tanned involves seeing the sun (which I already hate) and that comes with damage from UV and tan lines (unless I go out in sun completely naked, which is illegal here), and I personally do not think nice tanned skin is worth the cost. (I envy people who naturally have olive skin, though lol my skin's kind of a weird color.) And yeah, a couple hours of sun a day usually won't cause skin cancer, but you never know…