Friday 8 April 2016

Today's hair

Today's hairstyle is two five stranded braids.
I'm not going to leave my pyjamas for the rest of the weekend. Heh.

Wednesday 6 April 2016

New Clarisonic

Aka: "Part two of why March has been such a bad month for my poor skin".

My beloved Clarisonic broke about a month back. Actually it semi-broke first so I could only use the stupid T-timer function for a few weeks before it died completely. 

I really loved that thing. 
Unfortunately, it turned out (After lots and lots of Googling) that the Plus-model has been discontinued. 
Crap.
None of the remaining models have the body brush option.
Double crap.
All of the remaining models can only use T-timer mode.
Triple crap.


The T-timer is this ridiculous function where the Clarisonic beeps after a certain set time (Like 10 and 20 seconds) and shuts off after a minute. Because it's telling you in what order to wash your face: So many seconds for the nose and mouth, then you must move to the cheek clockwise for so many seconds etc.
It's a stupid and pointless function. 
I'll be the judge of where and for long my skin requires attention, thankyouverymuch.

So for a long time I researched other options.

I almost bought a Foreo Luna 2 for sensitive skin instead. 
Those have rave reviews and are said to be specially gentle for sensitive skin. But strangely my skin always liked the massage from the Clarisonic. I guess because it oscillates instead of rotate?


I ended up rejecting the Luna since I keep coming back to the same thought: I severely dislike the idea that it has no replaceable parts.
No matter how thoroughly I would clean this thing, it would creep me out I could never, ever replace he bristles.

So, sigh, I ended up (Unenthusiastically) getting myself a Clarisonic Aria.


Well, my skin was none the less happy to see a Clarisonic again.
I have an odd feeling of feeling sorry for this thing though: Sorry but I'll never love you as much as much as I did the last one.

Monday 4 April 2016

Placed a TK order

Aka: "Part one of why March has been such a bad month for my poor skin".

I've had way too many K-beauty products in my stash. Like, way, way too many.
Problem is that I have had so many awesome choices to pick from, that often I found myself putting good products back in the stash just to try even better ones.
It ended up in an overflowing mess.

So I made a rough estimate on how long it would take me to work through a decent portion of them. Then (repeatedly) told myself: No new Testerkorea-orders until April!
This has been really awful to keep.

Damn straight.

I ran out of the "extra" steps about a month back, so no essences, ampoules or serums for a month. My skin became increasingly cranky over that month. Especially when I ran out of toners and creams.
Strangely, the one thing I kept having enough of was cleansers.

No matter how much I tried to replace my "extra" steps with "normal" western products, it failed to make my skin happy.
I guess it just proves a whole different attitude and approach to skincare for me: The Korean products often have some seriously heavy hitters like hyaluronic acid, BHA or snail extracts and doesn't brag about it, because of course Korean skincare products will want to care for your skin.
For Western products a single heavy hitting ingredient will be plastered all over the packaging like OMG!

Well, I guess it was nice to confirm that K-products really are the thing for my skin.
It would have been nice to have been surprised and find I no longer need to order my skin stuff from halfway around the world...


My morning routine which involves SPF was a constant source of headaches and irritation, but I did find two products for my evening routine that worked for me although they also caused me some problems:
Eucerin ultrasensitive soothing care for normal to combination skin
which I used as a "serum" aka. all over my face and neck, followed by
Eucerin soothing skin balm
on my face and neck, excluding eye-area. This one is seriously heavy and greasy and required me to wipe off the remainder after about an hour.
Both products are in fact rather heavy and leave a residue, which triggers my urge to pick and/or mess with my skin. But since they otherwise didn't irritate my skin, they were the best option so far.

Anyways. My skin and I have patiently been waiting for april to come around.
To be honest, I was beginning to feel like my skin resembled Bunbuns after her horrible reaction. It probably looked less dramatic than it felt though.

I ordered some trusty old favorites from testerkorea and single one item for my hair:


Link
KRW 29,800 
23 Euro
26 USD
Park Juns Home Hair care
How to use the Treatment Heating Cap?
After washing hair, towel dry hair, apply lavishly your favourite treatment lotion/cream especially on the tip of your hair.
Put on a shower cap (for extra precaution).
Put on the treatment heating cap and plug in the 2-point switch into your power point and turn it on. Cap will slowly heat up.
It will not be too heated; just the right amount of heat will be applied.
Leave on for around 10 -15 minutes as desired.
Remove cap and leave hair to cool down to prevent hair follicles from being damaged when you just wash off after heating.
Wash with cold water after hair has completely cooled down to give your hair the shine and sheen! Voila!
Caution!
If you feel uncomfortable, which is unlikely, for any reason, remove the cap immediately.
That sounded awesome. A quick Google search confirmed that Korea uses the exact same voltage and power outlet as most of Europe, so I had to have it.


I'm very much looking forward to getting this heating cap. No more heating pads and layers of warm hats to keep the heat in. This will be awesome.

I found a couple of other models on the site, but I think the one I picked looks like the best quality.



















Link
KRW 26,000 


Link
KRW 25,000


Link
KRW 25,000