I see the words "brightening" and "plumping" a lot, but for me, There's always been a little bit of an intimidation factor in trying it out, mostly because of the amount of steps and different types of products there are. So I bought this "Beginner's Intro to Korean Skincare" kit kit from this website called Soko Glam, which includes ten products, and no instructions. But after a little Googling, I think I at least know roughly what order the steps are supposed to go in. It seems like I'm gonna be doing a lot of cleansing, washing, scrubbing, toning, essencing...
Whatever "essence" is, moisturizing, and moisturizing again. I am Sisyphus, the sink is my rock. This is a big step up for my current skincare routine, which consists of like three steps: Cleansing, scrubbing, and moisturizing. But I'm excited to try out this routine for a month and see if there are any noticeable benefits.
Okay, let's dive right in. Alright, let's finally clean this face, right? Let's get into it. I think that actually, in the evening time, we have nine steps, and then in the daytime we have ten steps, because one of the steps is like, SPF, but we've got nine steps for the night, so let's see how long that takes. I mean this is not one of them.
This is Tyler's hair mousse. - SAFIYA: But, uh-
- TYLER. Hey babe, I've been looking for that actually. So basically we start with a makeup remover, or oil-based cleanser.
It's called "Clean It Zero" by banila co.
Like vanilla, but... Banila. So basically, I guess you use your old spatula, you gouge some out, water hands, Bada bing, bada boom. - TYLER: You can do it with your makeup on? You don't have to take your makeup off first? This is *supposed* to take your makeup off.
It's like an oil. - TYLER: Are there any instructions in each one of these boxes? - SAFIYA: I hope so. [ LAUGHS ] [ READING ] "Use the spatula and take a reasonable amount of the balm." [ SURPRISED ] Ohhhh, it feels like coconut oil! - SAFIYA: [ READING ] "Gently massage the formula in circular motions onto dry skin to dissolve makeup." When I look at my hands, I've got these pellets of like, foundation-colored somethin-somethin'. [ UPSET ] I want to wash my face so bad.
- TYLER: You don't like it? I like that it's taking the makeup off, it seems, but I don't like how it feels on the face.
[ GARGLES ]
- TYLER: One step down, eight to go. Oh, there's a little oil in the eyes, but I think my makeup's gone. - TYLER: It's completely gone. Next is our water-based cleanser.
You cleanse with oil, you cleanse with water. And you moisturize, you moisturize. This is called the "Real Fresh Foam Green Tea Cleanser." [ READING ] "Pump one to two puffs, and gently massage all over wet face." Oh this smells so nice. It smells like whatever tea leaves are at the bottom.
I don't like matcha to drink, but on the face, I could accept it. Alright, patting dry. So the next step is exfoliator, so we've got this thing that they've given us. This is the "Strawberry Food Therapy Scrub Mask." - TYLER: [ EXCITED ] Ooh! - SAFIYA: Oh, it smells like strawberries, woah.
- TYLER: I want to eat that! [ MEOW ] - TYLER: Crusty wants some too.
[ MEOW ] - SAFIYA: Crusty, you want some? - SAFIYA: No. No.
[ TYLER LAUGHS ] Basically, I just massage this into my skin. [ SHOCKED ] Oh, it's warm, ahhh! It's warming! Ohh, it's warming on my face! I don't know if this is what it's supposed to do, it feels like, a little like, acidic almost? - TYLER: Yeah
- SAFIYA: Like as if it's kind of like, *attacking* chemically the top layers of my skin. Alright, it's been a couple of minutes, let's take this off.
[ SURPRISED ] Oh! My skin is so soft! There we go, step three down. Step four is toner. They're called the "Organic Cotton Treatment Toning Pads" by re:p ["Rep"]. - SAFIYA: They smell like ginger! "Right after cleansing, use one sheet of pad, applied to sweep across T-zone, and lightly tap on U-zone." "U-zone" must be this, right? I don't feel any different, but...
I think I smell a little bit more like sushi. Next is the essence. Here it is.
- TYLER: [ LAUGHING ] There's so many products. - There's so many things.
- TYLER: You're going to have to look this up like, every time.
This is the Galactomyces "95 Whitening Power Essence." It's basically like a second toner, I think? I think it just like... It's almost like a "pre-moisturizer"... [ DEFEATEDLY ] I don't know. It does *something* good for your skin.
Basically it says, "On cheeks, spread a generous amount to skin, and then tap the under-eye area as if playing the piano." [ IMITATES "DRACULA" ORGAN MUSIC
(J.S.Bach - Organ Toccata) ] Alright. I think I played the piano quite well. Oh... I missed the mask part.
- TYLER: [ CONFUSED ] What? I think I was supposed to do the mask before the essence step, so I did it out of order for this one.
Going forward, I'll swap them back to where they're supposed to be, but just for today I'm just going to put the mask on now. This is the Manefit "Bling Bling Hydrogel" mask, and I think like most masks, you just put it on for like, 15 to 20 minutes. The interesting thing is that this is one of the steps, but they only gave me one sheet mask. So I guess I'm just supposed to provide my own sheet masks? Here's my top half.
Oh, it's sparkly! [ CONCERNED ] Oh. It smells like Play-Doh. Aright, so it's on my face, I'm going to leave it on for like, 15 minutes, and then we're going to try and finish this skincare routine sometime tonight, man. - TYLER: This is *one* day.
Alright, let's take this bad boy off. [ SHAKEN ] Oh, God. I feel like I'm just moizturizing so much, like my skin is going to drown. So so far, we've done cleansing, cleansing, scrubbing, toning, masking, and essence.
So now we're gonna do lotion, then eye cream, eye cream, and then night moisturizer. I'm a little overwhelmed, but I think my face is going to like it. This is called the "Snail Bee High Content Lotion." Smells kind of like corn. It feels really nice though.
This is like my third moisturizing step in a row, and I have two moisturizing steps left. Alright, so that was lotion. Next up is eye cream. So this is the "Moisture Barrier Eye Cream" by Goodol.
- SAFIYA: Ready?
- TYLER: [ AFFIRMS ] - SAFIYA: That was way too much for the eyes. I'm learning as we go how much we need. Oh wow. Oh, it's a nice, rich cream.
Just pat that in. So that is eye cream! Alright, so the last step for the evening is this "Night Repair Cream." - SAFIYA: Is this not a cream?
- TYLER: Oh, that's hardcore. I think that actually maybe it's an essence, so we're supposed to put it on at the same time as this? Like, you're supposed to put two essences? I'm going to put this on now, but when I do this next time, I'm going to do it at the same time that I put this essence on. Alright, so I'm going to take a little bit, and we're just gonna put it on top of everything that's happened.
It smells kind of like, honey-ish? It feels really smooth, but at this point, I feel like I could just be feeling the layers of moisturizer that's already on my skin. So with that, I think I've used all my steps. The only other step that is in the routine is this thing, which is a SPF to put on during the daytime, so we'll start wearing that tomorrow. I think that in general, I feel really moisturized; I think I feel like, treated, like I'm like, "I treated my skin." I'm just gonna be a plump peach at the end of this.
But besides that, the time is lengthy. Maybe I'll get a little bit faster in general, just from getting the routine down. [ "Week 1" ] This morning I felt moisturized, and then I washed the moisture off, and then put it all back on, so I'm continuing to feel moisturized. The theme of week one was pretty much just that my skin was drowning in lotion.
An interesting side effect is because I was using my hands to apply so much of the moisturizer, my hands, especially my fingertips, are incredibly soft right now. "You're welcome" to anyone's hand that I shake during this month. The hydration also turned basically into fertilizer for my mustache. It's really been growing in like, nice, hydrated, smooth, long.
- TYLER: Because like, it's so moist, it's a greenhouse for your mustache. - [ LAUGHS ] It's a little bit like a rainforest. It's like, you know, you just keep it moist, and I'll start growing. One early problem I ran into was the sheet mask situation.
As I mentioned before, Soko Glam only gave me one sheet mask in the kit, So instead of going out and like, buying a ton of sheet masks, I figured, "Why not have Eve, my mask printing machine, print me one every night?" I want Eve to be able to take her sweet time and like, do what she needs to do, but there's no way I can do this every night. I mean, it's okay, Eve. Shh. I'm just going to cover her ears.
Yeah, she takes f***ing forever. - SAFIYA: But even without Eve, doing a sheet mask every day would be just too much time in general, so the ten steps turned into nine steps pretty quickly. I think I generally look like, more hydrated and more dewy. I may look a little tired this morning because I didn't sleep that much last night, but, in general, I think my skin is like, finally accepting the moisture.
By week two, I had gotten a lot faster at doing the routine, and I feel like my skin was looking like, pretty plump and young. Tyler noticed this and decided to try some of the products for himself. [ PLEASED ] Ooh! Oh, yeah. - No, not yet-! No-!
- [ TYLER SMACKING LIPS ] - SAFIYA: At least let it sit on your face for a second.
- It's like...
It's like jam. She's putting Smuckers on my face. - I do not recommend putting Smuckers on your face. - I do.
- So I can eat it now? [ SHOCKED ] Oh! Blech! [ SPITS ] - SAFIYA: [ LAUGHING ] You don't think it tastes good?
- It's bitter. - SAFIYA: [ LAUGHS ] Don't do that! - TYLER: It's much more bitter than you would assume. It looks delicious. That was gonna be the hardest part about it was not eating it.
I don't want it any more. Woah! A lot of seeds in there. Very physical. I mean, it's only one wash, but...
I like that. - SAFIYA: You actually look great, to be honest.
- Really? You could notice a difference? - SAFIYA: Yeah, you look better than me. Besides Tyler using, and also eating, some of the exfoliant, week two also brought about another hurdle. Something that's happening right now is that we're heading out of town for the weekend, and I'm trying to figure out how to pack my Korean skincare routine.
It's not necessarily going well. It is very difficult to travel with. I was only able to bring seven of my ten steps with me. I also had to check my suitcase to get everything here, because there was just too much fluid in every bottle.
They weren't quite "travel friendly." I also got my period that week, so between not having all my products, riding the crimson wave, traveling, and Chicago just being pretty darn humid, I started seeing some pimples. I started breaking out a little bit. Just like, there's like, one in the brow, there's like one over here, one over there. I feel like currently, I'm just equipped with like, 1 000 moisturizers, and I want to be able to like put on like a little spot treatment.
I don't have one, because that's not really part of the regime. I'm just gonna keep moisturizing it and hope that it eventually goes away once my period goes away. By week three, the pimples were still there. So I tried my current go-to spot treatment, which is tea tree oil.
But there are just so many other products in this routine, I felt like it was rendered mostly useless. So the pimples ruled the day. I got a good one going here, and then I also got a good one going up here. And a smaller one going there, and a couple more going over there.
I feel like the philosophy on skincare has changed a lot. Like, in the 2000s, it was like, "Oh, you have oily skin? You should dry your face out and wash it." And now it's like, "Oh, you have oily skin? You should cleanse with oil." What should I be doing? I don't know. Minus the zits, by week four, I felt like I had a pretty well-oiled machine. Literally and figuratively.
So this is me doing my whole routine in order. I think I finally figured it out, after weeks. So we've got oil cleansing, cleansing, scrubbing, toning, essencing, eye creaming, moisturizing, an SPF-ing. And that's it.
Pretty simple, huh? There is also my nighttime serum/essence, but I only use that at night. So, I guess it's only like, eight steps morning and night. 8 Steps twice a day, 16 steps a day. Um, 16 times 3 is 48, so 400 and like, 96 times? I did 496 applications of something to my face this month.
I hope that math is right. I think it is. - SAFIYA: Overall,. I enjoyed my month doing a Korean skincare routine.
I don't think that my skin looks like, completely different. Like, I don't think that my face just looks like baby's buttocks. But I do think that my skin is probably more hydrated than it's ever been before. I definitely think I'm going to use all of these products until they're finished, like, I did *like* them all a decent amount.
And I actually think that after using everything for a month, I do have a decent amount of everything left. Definitely my favorite steps were the oil-based cleanser and the eye cream. The oil-based cleanser is like, witchcraft. This thing actually really does take off all of your makeup.
The other product I really liked was this eye cream. Very nice, smells good, very moisturizing. I've actually been sneaking some of the eye cream up to the forehead as well. I don't think it's like, magnitudes better than any other eye cream I've ever tried, but the smell like, encouraged me to keep using it.
It was good for morale. So in some regards, like, using this kind of like, "starter pack" of like, ten steps, was a good way to like, get introduced to the Korean skincare without having to do a lot of decision-making or ordering myself. I think you could definitely like, substitute other products in for these products. It's more about just like, doing all the steps, and like, really like putting the work in.
And the *time*. And the energy. And the rubbing. I do think that I'm going to incorporate at least more steps into my normal routine.
Maybe not ten, or nine, or eight, but you know, maybe like five. Or six. I am going to look into a spot treatment though, because the pimples come and go, but they're definitely a presence. Thank you guys so much for watching, if you liked that video, make sure to "shmash" that Like button.
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