The weekend I broke up with 75% of my sheet masks

This weekend is going to be a light-hearted progress report and not an in-depth review, guide, or discussion, so if you're not particularly interested in how I attacked the contents of my sheet mask stash and culled the weak from the herd, check in next weekend when we'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming!

I poured myself a coffee, hauled my sheet masks out of every nook and cranny of the house, & prepared to be savage.

I know, last weekend when I posted my massive two-part megapost (2015 in Review, Part I: My Favourite K-Beauty Products of 2015, & Part II: My Favourite K-Beauty Tips, Concepts, & Trends of 2015) I said that I was taking this weekend off due to the double-post.  I was exhausted from a hectic season at work, family events, and writing a megapost that required me giving up sleep 4 nights in a row to finish in time.  I was determined to give myself a break this weekend, and maybe I'd finally tackle the giant, sprawling, terrifying catastrophe that is my office.

I had no intention of blogging this weekend; every once of mental fortitude was already spoken for this arduous task ahead of me.  So how did I end up breaking up with the majority of my sheet masks, and then staying up late posting about it?!

In this post:

• What possessed me to do this in the first place
• What I'm excited to use
• What I'm excited to try
• What I'm keeping, but not using, & what I'll be using up
• What's being given the boot- gifted, given away, and destashed
• What my mask collection looks like in the aftermath

There may be a few expired masks in the 'destined for destash' pile, so I'll be sorting through when I decide what to do with them, but it's such a relief to have culled so much from my stash.  Life is too short to be wasted on masks I don't want to use!

2015 in Review, Part I: My Favourite K-Beauty Products of 2015

This year has been definitely been an exciting time for K-Beauty and Asian beauty product fans; long-time fans have seen what was originally a grassroots niche become mainstream.  We've seen the advent of products carried in Sephora, Amazon, and other major retailers, regularly featured in major magazines like Vogue and Allure, and even book releases on the subject- K-Beauty and AB (Asian beauty products) has really come into its own this year, and it's the time of year for 'best of' posts, so here's mine!

The amazing scent of this wreath makes up for the needles everywhere.  Mostly.

There will be two parts to this post, the first a light-hearted rundown of products, and the second a more reflective discussion of the themes, concepts, tips, trends, etc, of 2015.

In this post: Favourite Products of 2015

• Favourite Cleansers of 2015

• Favourite First cleanser

• Favourite Foaming Cleanser

• Favourite Travel Cleanser

• Favourite Cleansing Tool & Honourable Mention

• Favourite Acne & Anti-Aging Products of 2015

• Favourite Skincare of 2015

• Favourite Toner

• Favourite Essences

• Favourite Serum

• Favourite Cream (and overall top pick for 2015!)

• Favourite Sheet Masks

• Favourite Sunscreen

• Favourite Makeup of 2015

• Favourite Base Makeup

• Favourite Lip Product

The more serious-toned Part II is here: 2015 in Review, Part II: My Favourite K-Beauty Tips, Concepts, & Trends of 2015, and includes:

• K-Beauty goes mainstream: does it have to be Korean to be K-Beauty?
• The most influential concepts of 2015
• Healthy habits: things I adopted and let go of in 2015, for the better
• Top tips from 2015: things that made my life easier
• Trends I loved in 2015 and will continue to love in 2016

It should go without saying that this is just my personal list of top picks; please don't be offended if your favourite isn't here!  This year has seen a lot of interesting developments beyond just the products, so rather than just focus on the tangible products, I'll also be giving a shout-out to the intangible developments that excited me the most in Part II- now finished and linked above.

What's In My Skincare Wardrobe: Cleanser Edition

One of the ongoing themes that I've been championing for a while, and it's also favoured by other diehard Asian skincare devotees with serious skincare stashes, is the 'Skincare Wardrobe'; the idea that you can have a 'closet' of options to select from rather than wearing everything all at once.

This week, I'm going to be featuring the cleansers currently in my 'Wardrobe', because I have ... 7 cleansers (+1 I am testing, for a total of 8) currently on rotation and they all see regular use.  Shocking, I know!  But would it be so strange to have 8 different styles of shirts, ranging from tank tops to winter sweaters?  Nope.  Hence, the concept of the 'Skincare Wardrobe', and we're going to peek into my cleanser 'closet' today.

So many cleansers!  Can you really use them all?  Spoilers: yes.

Last week in The Painful Path to K-Beauty Wisdom: 7 Mistakes Beginners Make, under the section 'Buying 'cult' products that don't suit your skin type', I mentioned this concept again:

I look at my products as a 'wardrobe' of options; I may have items in my closet ranging from bathing suits to winter coats, but that doesn't mean I'm going to wear every piece of clothing I own at once.  However, having a range of skincare options is actually a good thing, in my opinion, because it populates your wardrobe with options that you can mix and match depending on the 'weather' that day.

This is a really important concept to keep in mind when you're reading tall tales of the supposed number of products used in an Asian skincare routine; even routines I have posted, such as the Multi-Step Korean Skincare Routine: Winter/Spring 2015, Part II: Current Products, featured a staggering 30 products in its lineup:

Image from: Multi-Step Korean Skincare Routine: Winter/Spring 2015

Sure, it looks like a lot.  The thing is, real routines don't actually look like that; if you check out my Instagram, you'll see typical AM and PM routines that I actually use, on a daily basis.

Here's a random selection of two AM routines, one featuring body lotion, and a PM routine complete with a mask pack:

Left to right: AM routine ft a sheet mask, AM routine ft body care, and PM routine ft mask pack.

As you can see, there are some consistent products, but even though I didn't deliberately pick these to illustrate my point (I only realized after I had collaged them together, haha) these routines all use different cleansers, which makes them perfect for today's post.  (Gotta love that serendipity.)  There's a pump-foamed cleanser, a cleansing water, and a foam-with-water cleanser.  They're all part of my Skincare Wardrobe, and I pull them out on different occasions.

That doesn't mean that I use it as an excuse to have a million things open at once, so there's no hope of using them before they expire, but it does meant that I have the flexibility to customize my daily routine to perfectly suit my skin's needs that day, and that's what the multi-step Asian skincare hype is all about, in my opinion.  Customization for the win!

In this post:

• Cleansing waters
• Cleansing wipes
• Oil, balm, cream, and gel oil cleansers
• Cleansing powders
• Self-foaming cleansers
• Water-soluble foaming cleansers

I will also mention, before we jump in, that all of my cleansers are low pH.  pH is just one of the considerations that goes into my choice of cleansers- as you're going to see from all the rejects I've 'purged' from my closet like outdated shirts and ratty jeans.

Travel SOS: Taking a 10 Step Skincare Routine on the Road with Poor Planning

While having a Multi-Step Korean Skincare Routine is awesome for customization whether it's the Winter or Summer, it also means that travelling is a bit of a nightmare.  Last week I was out of state, and since we would be gone a full week, I mistakenly assumed that we would be checking a bag and thus figured I could pack the full-size bottles that make up my current routine.

The night before we flew out, I got ready to pack and was was advised by my bewildered spouse that we would not be checking a bag.  Cue panic!  How was I going to fit my routine in a carry-on?!

The dreaded 3-1-1 TSA guideline.  Image from here

If you aren't familiar with the American TSA rules for carry-ons, anything liquid has specific rules, namely:

3-1-1 for carry-ons. Liquids, gels, aerosols, creams and pastes must be 3.4 ounces (100ml) or less per container; must be in 1 quart-sized, clear, plastic, zip-top bag; 1 bag per passenger placed in screening bin. The bag limits the total liquid volume each traveler can bring.

A quart-sized ziploc bag is not a lot of space when even your "pared-down" Summer routine looks like this:

Image from my Updated Multi-Step Korean Skincare Routine Summer 2015: Sheet Masks Galore post

If I had planned ahead, I could have purchased all the airless pump bottles I would need to decant everything I wanted, and played tetris until I had the perfect combination.  Sadly, I had time for neither.

In this post:

• The 411 on my 3-1-1
• My 'dry goods' and makeup
• What I took with me and why
• What I regretted not bringing

So with no time to order bottles, what did I do?

Updated Multi-Step Korean Skincare Routine Summer 2015: Sheet Masks Galore

Today I'm finally posting the Summer version of my routine, as a follow-up to my in-depth discussion of the Korean multi-step skincare approach post which includes all my Winter/Spring 2015 products ... all 30 of them.

Even though scorching, sticky summer has arrived, the guidelines of thinking in steps, not products, how to add in or remove additional products, and their order of use have not changed, but as always my skincare has shifted to match the season.

Even though there are quite a few products here, this is a far cry from the 30+ in my Winter/Spring routine here.

However, just as I mentioned in the Winter/Spring routine, I use only a few products per day, and tailor my selections to how my skin is feeling ... but let's be blunt here.  I barely use anything these days, because it's TOO DAMN HOT.

As I mentioned in the post: Science Meets K-Beauty Wisdom: How Keeping Cool May Be Good for Your Skin, temperatures here are climbing rapidly and when it gets hot enough that I'm peeling off my office chair with the sound of duct tape being ripped off the roll, I don't want to do a full routine.

In this post:

• It's too hot for layers
• My AM & PM routines
• Cleansers
• Actives 
• Hydrators
• Top 3 Summer Sheet Masks
• Occlusives
• Treatments/Sunscreen

So, here's the updated version of what my Summer 2015 routine is looking like these days!

April Favourites & Upcoming Sheet Mask Roundup

This week I'll be doing something a little more casual and conversational, so if you're not into that or are more interested in seeing reams of sheet mask recaps, stay tuned for next week!

As I mentioned at the end of last week's giant two-part megapost which was a breakdown of the basic steps in a multi-step Asian skincare routine in Part I, and a detailed explanation of the products I use and what order they go in in Part II, I'd be skipping anything too strenuous this weekend.  I needed to recover from the 18-hour writing marathon (not including an entire prior weekend of photo taking) and I decided to do something fluffy and fun this weekend!

Oh Evercos Hanbang Masks, I love you so.  May you always have a place in my sheet mask stash.

I'm not normally one to do 'monthly favourites' because for one, I test things really slowly so I rarely have a lot of products to talk about at once, for another I dislike casual reviews, and lastly I just never gravitate towards those kinds of posts myself so it never occurs to me to do them.

In this post:

• My favourites for April
• Upcoming reviews and testing schedule
• Upcoming recap of my Sheet Mask mini-reviews (normally found on Instagram)

Multi-Step Korean Skincare Routine: Winter/Spring 2015, Part II: Current Products

In Part I, we looked at the basic steps that make up a multi-step Asian routine, and how I customize my routine based off how my skin is feeling.  

I also mentioned that you don't have to use Asian products, although I have found that Asian products are best suited to a multi-step routine.  Multitaskers are actually not always a good thing; sometimes you want the right tool for the job.

It's a rabbit hole, though, because sometimes you find yourself wanting a cream for oily days, one for normal days, and one for dry days, and then maybe a mist for a little extra hydration, and that whitening serum looks promising, and you haven't found an oil cleanser that works for you just yet, and the next thing you know, your daily lineup options look like this:

It's just as terrifying the second time, isn't it? (Click image for large size)

So do you really need all of that?  Of course not.  But it is possible to use it all and make your skin happy by doing so, as long as you only use what your skin actually needs, and you don't open more products than you can actually use up in 3-6 months.  (So says skin goddess Go Hyun Jung, if you google image search her, you'll see why I listen to her wisdom.)

In this post:

• Visuals of my current products/their order of use (pt. I)
• My actual base routine (pt. I)
• How I add in optional steps (pt. I)
• Think 'steps', not 'products' (pt. I)
• My current product lineup for each step (pt. II)

Multi-Step Korean Skincare Routine: Winter/Spring 2015

You may have heard about the multi-step skincare routine popular in Asia, particularly where women (or men, for that matter) can use anywhere from 10-20 products in a single day.

This is a really challenging concept for westerners, because we are taught not to overload our skin, that excess products are actually harmful, less is more, etc.  Indeed, you might look at this image of all the products I potentially might use in a day, and be horrified:

Behold the fearsome product line-up of my Winter/Spring 2015 routine! (Click image for large size)

Before you panic or decide I am crazy, there are two things to keep in mind: 1. the key word here is "potentially" meaning I don't use them all at once, and 2. the Asian skincare philosophy is all about customization.
  

My daily routine is actually quite simple (I promise) but I have a huge range of products I may potentially add in depending on the weather, what I'm going to be doing that day, but most importantly, what my skin feels like it needs.

In this post:

• Visuals of my current products/their order of use (pt. I)
• My actual base routine (pt. I)
• How I add in optional steps (pt. I)
• Think 'steps', not 'products' (pt. I)
• My current product lineup for each step (pt. II)

Lunar Sale Avecko haul & Why you need to know what ePOSTg is

It's been a weekend of roller coaster emotions.  I went from elated that my package was here, in despair that it had been stolen, to elated when it was found, all within 48 hours.  I'm worn out.

I placed this order in early February during the Lunar Holiday (New Year) full knowing that my items would be greatly delayed on their domestic journey to Avecko, and then that Avecko themselves would be going on holiday as well.

I didn't mind; the prospect of snagging some delicious holiday flash sale deals like I did in my first two Avecko hauls (click here for those goodies!) and I was almost completely out of the Leejiham (LJH) Tea Tree 90 Essence, so it was an opportune moment to make a mini-haul and pick up some goodies.

I stalked my package daily, multiple times a day once it arrived in the US; it was a comforting bright spot in an increasingly stressful start to the year.  Then it went missing.

In this post:

• My rage and despair over the loss of my package
• Why ePOSTg is a really important thing to know about
• Unboxing of my Avecko package (at last)
• What I purchased, how much I saved, and why I bought them