Guest Post: Skincare Swap Experiment with Fifty Shades of Snail

You know what happens when skincare bloggers get together? Shenanigans. As some of you already guessed from our Instagram posts, I've dragged my fellow snail Fiddy of Fifty Shades of Snail into some skincare routine-swapping mischief.  You'll find a link to my companion post at the end of this guest post!

My Skin Is a Spoiled Princess: Fiddy's Skincare Routine Swap Story

By guest blogger Fiddy of Fifty Shades of Snail

One of the things that alarms me the most in my blogging life is a reader's declaration that they've decided to duplicate my routine all at once. To me, that's never a good idea. Everyone's skin is different, and no one person's routine should be a template for anyone else.

Which is why, when the lovely Cat asked me if I wanted to swap routines for a few days, I hesitated for a moment, pondered all the ways that things could go wrong, and enthusiastically agreed. What better way could there be to demonstrate the pitfalls of copying someone else's routine format, or to learn that maybe we're wrong and one way really is better than the other?

Who am I and why are we doing this?

This project was inspired by a Refinery29 piece in which two women swapped their makeup routines--and actual makeup products--for clicks and funsies. Cat and I, being sane and germ-averse, and also impatient to get started, decided that instead of swapping actual products, we'd adopt each others' routine steps. This is a record of what happened to me on Cat's routine.

Screencap  featuring swapping used makeup from Refinery29s makeup swap video

For those of you who don't know me, either for real or in the way that Mariah doesn't know people, I'm Fiddy, one of Cat's fellow Snailcasters. I usually confine my thoughts to Fifty Shades of Snail. I'm here today at Cat's invitation to share my experience using her routine format, while she's currently camped out on my blog.

You guys are probably already familiar with Cat's skin, which is dehydrated, oily-combo, and prone to acne and clogged pores. Mine, on the other hand, leans dry. I don't have many problems with clogs or breakouts; instead, I'm battling aging and hyperpigmentation.

As you can imagine, our routines look a little different.

Is K-Beauty for Everyone? Perspectives on Appropriation and Marketing

I have a confession: I've been in a bit of a skincare funk.  For a long time, I've blamed it on overwork-- working 60 hours a week has left me little time for luxuries like brushing my hair showering daily sleeping more than a few hours a night an elaborate skincare routine, but I've come to realize that it's much more than that.  I'm in a K-Beauty funk, meaning that I've been feeling conflicted and troubled every time I go to wash my face.  It's time for some soul-searching.

As K-Beauty has become more and more mainstream in the west, it's gone from being an ignored niche interest to a widely-marketed source of $$$ from all levels of the beauty industry, shifting from hipster-y hobbyists to an oversaturation of US-based resellers cannibalizing ideas while mega retailers like Sephora and Target stock sheet masks and snail creams.

You might think this is another one of those tired tropes of aforementioned hipster grumpy over their obscure finds becoming mainstream, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Actually, I'm absolutely thrilled that K-Beauty is in such international demand that Sulwhasoo recently launched a whopping 7 shades ranging from #11 to #33, a move which completely shocked a Korean friend of mine as she pointed out that most Korean brands feature only two shades (#21 and #23) and don't address [in her opinion] the shade needs of Koreans in Korea, let alone anyone outside of Korea.

Image from Sulwhasoo's KR site

I'm quite happy that K-Beauty has grown so much in the 4 years that I've been blogging about it, because it's seen exponential growth and it's a totally different scene since the days where I had to use Google Translate to figure out what I was buying.

What troubles me is how it's being marketed, talked about, and presented.

In this post:

• The trouble with K-Beauty marketing
• Why I write about K-Beauty
• 5 Korean women share their thoughts about K-Beauty on the global stage

There's nothing wrong with a little soul-searching to examine one's own motives and reasons for doing, well, anything.   But more important than what I have to say about it, is what the Korean women I know have to say about it, and I'm fortunate enough to have several sources just an email away for me to ask!

Speak Your Truth: On Receipts, Podcasts, & How Lifting Up One Another Benefits Everyone

I'm not sure if today's post is going to be short or long, because I'm currently curled up in my chair covered in a blanket, with only my hands peeking out as I slowly type between sips of tea and fits of coughing.  I'm not even sure when this post will go up, because I have to take frequent nap breaks as my nurse friends yell at me that I need to be resting, not blogging, before I end up with pneumonia or in the hospital.

I usually push through being sick and continue blogging into the wee hours of the morning, but seeing as my husband has to escort me to and from the washroom because attempts to walk on my own have me weaving back and forth like I'm failing a sobriety test, even I have to admit that I'm pretty sick and probably shouldn't be straining myself.  Husband is nagging me while still bringing me a constant supply of tea and soup broth; I've been living off a diet of hot liquids, the occasional poached egg, and saltine crackers.  Actually, this is pretty much me over the weekend, just with a saltine instead of a carrot:

Gif made from video here: Dito Lobito on youtube

Thankfully, not only does my husband support me by being my tea-and-soup dealer, he also doesn't complain when he trips over yet another unpacked box of Korean cosmetics, nor does he ask me judgey questions about how much I spend on my hobby (i.e. blogging) because he knows I respect my budget, nor does he side-eye me when he stumbles out for a washroom trip at 4 am on a Sunday morning and I'm still up blogging.  OK, maybe he glares at me forgoing sleep yet again, but at least he doesn't say anything?

He also made an effort to help me place and take a photo of my 'sick day routine' because I can't really stand up, let alone lean over, right now.  So this photo is courtesy of Mr. Snow, given with full credits:

Photo credit: Mr. Snow, who also patiently endured me "steadying myself" by holding his butt while he bent over to arrange these on the table and then snapped the photo.  I'm sick, not dead.

Thank goodness for cleansing water and decanting things into mist bottles, because this is as close to a 'routine' as this flu-riddled version of myself is going to get this weekend.  Did you know that sheet masks can be a way to pleasantly cool a fevered face?  Just saying.

I'm also exhausted from unnecessary drama that has been popping up lately over the last few months, but hit particularly hard this weekend- terrible timing, but is there ever good timing for people to make wild blanket accusations about the ethics of bloggers?  I'm going with no, but seeing as I was already in a haze of dizziness and flu symptoms, I was out of the resources needed to calmly ignore it and keep on living right.  Instead, I just decided to throw out some #receipts on the table so that people could stop speculating and realize that they're actively sabotaging the people who are living right, driving away people who are in it for love, not for money.

It's times like these that make me question blogging, because when the currency in which you pay yourself for your time, effort, and personal $$, is not money but love, how do you keep going when you get a facefull of misplaced anger and hate?

There's so much negativity in the beauty blogging world; so much jealousy and suspicion and shade even from within the blogging community itself.  So how do you offset that?  In my experience, it's by reaching out to one's peers as a hand in the darkness, and looking for ways to lift one another up instead of tearing one another down.

I don't think this gets talked about nearly enough, so I'm going to talk about it today.

In this post:

• Blogging #receipts: what my blog pays me
• The Snailcast podcast, Episode 6: The Truth about Asian Beauty Blogs and $$$
• Countering the beauty blogging culture of jealousy, speculation, and suspicion
• An open letter of appreciation to my readers

There's probably going to be a lot of rambling in my post.  Oh wait, there's also this:

• What's in my "sick day" routine

Ok, grab a lysol wipe and let's do this.  I have a fresh mug of tea in which to dip gingersnap cookies, so I'm going to give it my best shot.

One Shade to Flatter Them All: Clio Tension Lip #7 'Some' Review & Swatches on Fair, Medium, and Deep skin tones

Time for more fall-appropriate makeup adventures!  I'm quite excited about this post because not only do I absolutely freaking love this lipstick, thanks to the help of two lovely fellow K-Beauty bloggers, I'm going to be able to show how it looks on skin tones other than mine!

I not only love this lipstick, but it's been my go-to shade side I started using it in ... July?  (Seasonal appropriateness be damned, I love plum shades.)   I made a summer haul from Clio's official US site which included this lipstick, and was very excited about it as it was sold out on the site from which I'd been hauling, but to my sadness it didn't survive the trip.  When I opened it, the lipstick was nowhere to be found- it had melted and slid into the lid.  Nooooo!   I let Clio know about a (sunscreen) hiccup in my order which was my fault, I mentioned what happened to the lipstick, and to my delight, they offered to send me a replacement!

My pristine replacement tube, finally ready for photos.

When the weather cooled off, I contacted Clio to arrange to add my replacement lipstick to an order I was making- which is how got my hands on the new eyeshadow palette from Clio; you can check it out here: First Look & Swatches: Clio Pro Palette

In this post:

• Product Details
• Lip Swatches on NC10, NC35, and NC/NW45 skin tones
• Comparison swatches with other red/pink/purple lip products
• Final Thoughts

One of the drawbacks of looking for makeup swatches online is the swatcher may not have a similar skin tone as you- this is especially an issue with K-Beauty and deeper skin tones, which are distressingly underrepresented.  So for this post, I reached out to some friends who are both PoC K-Beauty bloggers on Instagram, and they agreed to test it out for me for comparison's sake!

Amazingly, all three of us absolutely love the lipstick despite having very different skin tones.  Swatches ahoy!

Mating Habits of Molecules: the Secret Life of pH

One of the things that excites me the most about skincare is its capacity to interest me in other things, such as learning Hangul to shop for products directly from Korea, how ingredients like ceramides are really cool but that ingredients lists aren't predictors of success, and most famously, why the pH of your cleanser matters.  The science of skincare is so vast and ever-evolving that it's constantly supplying me with fascinating new things to learn.

Since writing the above pH post a year ago, I've had the chance to discuss it with many interesting people, from nerdy skincare bloggers like me, to new users who are trying to make sense of their skin, to chemists and scientists from various fields who have a concurrent interest in skincare.

I have two goals in this post: to clarify my personal thoughts on pH and its role in skincare, because I have noticed a trend of it being taken out of context, and also to help others who are grappling with trying to understand a complex system without a chemistry background.  I don't have a background in chemistry nor do I have a scientific or medical degree, but one of the many blessings my blogging journey has brought me is friendships with those who do possess them and are wiling to answer my endless stream of questions.

pH strips: familiar friends, but what are they actually measuring?

This has lead to a lot of late night conversations involving things such as the periodic table, chemical compounds, and how O- molecules are really randy.  Science can be dense and difficult absorb, so I'm going to be using my powers of perversity and explaining things using NSFW analogies which are both entertaining and, as my chemist friends assure me, accurate.

In this post:

• pH is Just the Beginning, Not the End

• What role does pH have in my personal skincare approach?

• Water is pH 7, pH 7 is not water

• Everybody Wants Some H+ to Love

• The basics of pH

• What is an acid?  What is a base?

• What does a pH test measure?

Warning: this post will contain some R-rated analogies in order to explain some very challenging concepts, so if you aren't comfortable with that, I'd recommend stopping before we get to the section on Everybody Wants Some H+ to Love.

The Bottle That Stole My Heart: Sooryehan Hyo Biyeon Concentrated Brightening Essence Review

Sometimes we use skincare because it's an excellent product that gives good results, sometimes we use it because it's got an entertaining gimmick, and sometimes it's both.  Sometimes, we just like the pretty packaging, and today's review is firmly in the latter category, but I have no regrets.

Why?  Because it looks like this:

Prepare yourselves for a lot of senseless glamour shots 

I suppose I should feel some modicum of shame as a blogger that the primary impression I have of this product is of the packaging, but when the packaging looks like this, can you blame me?

In this post:

• Gratuitous photos
• Product details
• Ingredients
• Full review

This bottle was so pretty that I actually managed to completely empty it, to the point where I was caught unawares by it's abrupt end, unable to eke out enough of the serum to show the colour or consistency, whoops!  I think I have some ill-fated serum blend attempt photos somewhere, come to think of it.  Anyway, let's begin with the eyecandy and ... stuff.  Review stuff?  Mmm, shiny pretty things.  What were we talking about?

Blogger Boundaries: Why I Can't Recommend A Product For You, ft. Blogger adoredee

There have been some really thought-provoking discussions flying around the Asian beautyblog community, sparked by posts like How to Beauty Haul Responsibly by adoredee, How My Elaborate Korean Skincare Routine Helps Me Fight Depression by 50 Shades of Snail,  Skincaretainment: Connection & the culture of Korean Beauty by fanserviced-b, and last week’s post on Thoughts on Hauling Responsibly, & Skincare as a Hobby.

It's not always science and snails, sometimes it's science, snails, and serious topics.

[image source]

These discussions have been happening alongside an increasing number of requests I have received to assist with recommending products to resolve specific skin conditions and concerns, and the combination of factors spurred me to reach out to adoredee (who is a Consumer Psychologist as well as a Asian beautyblogger) to tackle another tough topic:  Why bloggers can't definitively recommend products for you, no matter how much we want to help you out.  And we do; most bloggers do it out of love and an interest in sharing with and helping others, but just because we want to, doesn't mean we should.

She agreed, as she too has seen that the temptation to rely on the advice of your kindly bloggers is strong, and many people request assistance that bloggers may not qualified to give.   I suspect that many bloggers, and readers, find themselves in this conundrum and I think it's worth talking about.

In this post:

• The Decision Making Process
• Bloggers are enthusiasts, not Dermatologists
• We can give you starting points, but not instructions
• Recommending products for other skin types
• Skincare is a personal journey; there are no shortcuts

Interview: A Korean Prodigal Daughter returns to her K-Beauty Roots

I have been very excited about this week's post for some time; I have been dying to interview H, the lovely Korean woman who has been helping me in my pursuit of lesser-known Korean products- the fabulous Beauty of Joseon Dynasty Cream, for example.

In 2010, at the age of 21, H moved from Korea to the US and is only now developing an interest in the beauty products of her native country.  Like many Korean women, she used imported beauty products (American and European are the most popular) and Korean-made products were not even on her radar.

However, while helping me with many a late-night Korean shopping site marathon, translating product listings and images that defied Google Translate, my Korean-product-evangelism was so fierce that eventually I was able to convert H to the ~Way of the Snail~.   

This image from her phone spans the breadth of a Great Skincare Journey. Image credit: H

Like the return of the Prodigal Son Daughter, H has rediscovered Korean products and she has agreed to answer all my burning questions about her triumphant return to her beauty roots.

In this post:

• How and why she switched from western products to Korean ones
• Her thoughts on the Hallyu Wave and how it's reverse-impacting Korea
• Her routine and the American products she won't give up

Let's get this party started!

Kahime and Snow’s Guide to Shopping for Hard-to-Find Korean Products When You Don’t Know Korean

This week’s post is is brought to you by the combined efforts of two Asian beauty bloggers, Lin Lin Hime and Snow White and the Asian Pear, who have joined forces to bring our readers this very special how-to guide on where and how to find Korean beauty products- when you don’t know a lick of Korean but you’re starry-eyed at the amazing selection and prices of products available within Korea, and gloomy over how expensive/limited the selection is from international vendors.

In this post:

• Details on the buying service that will send you your products 
• How to locate the products you want 
• Key search terms, ingredients, and brand names - in Korean 
• How to collect the data the buying service needs 
• A pre-made spreadsheet that does all the hard work for you 
• Bloggers cheerfully sassing one another

Guest Review of Beauty Blender Sponge Dupe from LeCosemetique

This week's review of the Beauty Blender Sponge Dupe from lecosmetique.com is is brought to you by Guest Reviewer Courtney of San Francisco, who shares my interest in meticulously researching obscure beauty items.

Courtney and I have very different skin profiles, and she provides the following details about hers:

• Ethnicity: Asian (Japanese & Chinese)
• MAC skin tone: NC35-NC40
• Skin type: oily/combination, occasional acne, tans easily
• Concerns: wrinkles, dark circles and bags under eyes, uneven skin tone, scars, aging.

Read on for her fantastic review of a better quality dupe of these famous sponges: