Avecko Haul - Products I purchased directly from Korea (Part II)

Now that I've regaled you with unboxing pictures of beautiful things, buying decisions, and vague references to prices in Part I of this post, now we're going to get detailed about how I did it.

 Technically, the products in this image are actually from two separate hauls, both placed via group order:

For pictures of everything unboxed, please see Part I here

In this post:

• What I purchased, with lots of pictures, and why I purchased it (Part I)
• Upcoming blog posts about specific products from this haul (Part I)
• How much it cost, and how much I saved compared to regular channels (Part II)
• How I found the items I wanted, and where I purchased from (Part II)
• My experience working with Avecko, including a small snafu (Part II)

When I was asked to do this review, the most frequently asked questions were: how much did it cost, and where did I get it?  So let's get to it!

Avecko Haul - Products I purchased directly from Korea (Part I)

During the holiday season I teamed up with a fellow blogger to create a Guide to Shopping for Hard-to-Find Korean Products When You Don’t Known Korean, which details how to use a Buying Service (in our case, Avecko) to source, purchase, and ship otherwise unavailable goods to you.

In my case, these goods:

This haul was so lovely that even the winter sky wanted to weep over the precious deals I got ... or just rain on me and ruin my pictures, in order to force me grab everything and run back inside, squawking like a wet hen?.  

In this post:

• What I purchased, with lots of pictures, and why I purchased it (Part I)
• Upcoming blog posts about specific products from this haul (Part I)
• How much it cost, and how much I saved compared to regular channels (Part II)
• How I found the items I wanted, and where I purchased from (Part II)
• My experience working with Avecko, including a small snafu (Part II)

In fact, the guide I linked above evolved from things I put together to help some friends and I make a group order through Avecko's buying service.  The spreadsheet template, for example, was originally made for us to organize our huge, multi-person order. 

 Kahime was the person who helped me the most with identifying key terms and recommended sites, and after pestering her for the umpteenth time and seeing her amazement at how smoothly the spreadsheet estimated costs, organized products, and coordinated the order, it occurred to us that we should join forces to make an official guide so others could benefit.  Hence, the guide was born.

Today’s post is the fruits of those labours!

Putting your products in order, including pH dependent acids

One of the questions I hear the most often from new Asian beauty product fans is what order to place their products in, especially if they are using actives like Vitamin C serums or acids, which are pH-dependent.  After many individual responses, with the same questions over and over, I realized it needed its own post.

This is understandably overwhelming for many people. Image from: K-Beauty on Amazon: Rebuilding a 15+ Step Routine if My Stash Caught on Fire

There are some general rules that cover 90% of skincare, but once you add powerful actives like Vitamin C antioxidant serums and chemical exfoliants, things get a little more complicated.  This guide will cover them all.

In this post:

• Basic rules on the order that applies to all your skincare
• How to incorporate 'actives' which are pH dependent
• The order of your pH dependent products, such as BHA and AHA
• Borderline NSFW analogies if the technical terms are making your head spin

There is a lot of understandable confusion, because the product names don't really make sense or they are misleading: i.e. 'First Essence' that doesn't actually go first, a 'Lotion' that has the texture of water, and the even more mystifying-named 'Skin'.  (What??)

Now fit in 2 cleansers, 3 actives, and a partridge in a pear tree!

It makes you want to pull out a dartboard and let fate decide.

Better Beauty Through Chemistry: Unboxing of my digital pH Meter supplies

Unboxing posts are popular in the blogging world, but today's contents are a little different than what normally gets delivered to my door.

Kimwipes and buffer solutions and nitrile gloves oh my!

On the 12th day of Christmas, my mailman gave to me: A gallon of distilled water, 280 Kimwipes, 100 nitrile glooooooooooooves, 4 buffering solutions, 100 pH strips, one digital pH meter, and a partridge in a pear tree.  (Technically, the water was courtesy of my long-suffering and non-judgemental spouse, but you get the idea.  Also, no bird in a fruit tree; I'd have nowhere to put it.)

In This Post:

• My pH kit haul
• Prepping my gadgets
• Test results
• Lots of science blather about Vitamin C, BHA, and AHA
• Whether it's worth going to all this effort
• What's worth buying & where to get it

Over the last year, my interest in beauty products has shifted; I am as enamoured of Asian beauty products as ever, but now I'm highly curious about the science of skincare.

If you've been following my blog, you may have noticed that I have started looking deeper into the ingredients of my products, especially those that are considered 'actives' and therefore expected to have reliable results, and doing a lot of research on the science of skin and skincare, such as my Skincare Discovery: Why the pH of Your Cleanser Matters post, where I get granular about why pH is so integral to the health of your skin.