Wellness: Trying Korean Beauty (K-Beauty) in Korea

As a woman who is pretty low-maintenance, Korean beauty was not on my radar before we arrived here but when we arrived in Busan I was immediately immersed in the scope of this trend. Every block on a city street has multiple skincare stores with their own branded confections: Innisfree, The Saem, FaceShop, Nature Republic, Olive & Young, XYZ are around every corner and in every train station and underground mall. It was impossible to look away and I found myself at 40 really questioning my own skincare routine, or rather complete lack of it! The truth is, I'm a health nut and a bit suspicious of the beauty industry and women's mass mediated obsession with youth and perfection.

Over the years, I've personally limited my use of makeup and skincare to a little bit of mascara and eyeliner once in awhile along with maybe olive or coconut oil on my skin for moisture. I've of course heard all my friends talk about sunscreen, eye creams and face mask and except for a few moments with girlfriends I've generally steered clear. I know you may be judging me right now - but I've always trusted my body to do the heavy lifting and I believe skin, as the largest organ in the body, has an intuitive sense of what's right. This is not to say that I haven't suffered in my stubborn approach - I had adult-onset hormonal acne on my chin throughout my late 20s and into my 30s that was pretty rough; it eventually evened out when I really cleaned up my diet and started eating more holistically. Since then, I've been able to really just focus on me and look the other way when advertisements and peer pressure have turned their heads. Here in Korea, I just couldn't look away so I decided why not try this whole thing out. Regardless of my idealistic leanings on this, I decided to give this all a try as this is obviously part of the culture here, and a little out of my comfort zone. When in Rome!

Walking into the local Innisfree, the most natural (or branded that way) store I was immediately taken by all the products with their pretty pictures of whole foods on the packaging. Looking at the ingredients list was not super scary as I thought maybe it would be - mostly organic and all legible - that's a big one for me and typically indicates how processed something is and whether I want to put it on my face. I picked up a few sheet masks with floral essences on them along with a "hair mask" that I had never seen before - meant to deeply condition dead ends (from which I definitely suffer).

I tried cucumber, snail muchin (yes, this is a thing!), whitening masks (for my skin spotting and awesome lip melasma that is a new addition to my face) and xyz. It was amazing shopping for these masks as every time I walked into a branded store or a typical drug store like Olive & Young there were huge crowds of men and women looking for and buying products. Turns out men too are deeply in on the skincare magic here and Julio was convinced to also give it a try.  and Trying new things and ingredients. Ie Snail muchin, Donkey milk , Placenta.

Beauty products geared towards men. men and women shopping together.

Turns out that as I suspected, I am way behind a trend that seems to be taking the world by storm - and has been for a few years now. Korean beauty products like makeup and skincare is fast becoming the de-facto for afficianados across the Internet and experts alike. Face masks, creams, treatments and makeup all competing internationally for the throne (so to speak) with established old-world heavyweights from Europe and the United States. As a huge businesss and market it's interesting to look at this as a lens onto what's happening with South Korea's economy on the whole. 

While some critics point to the insane and often ridiculous standards of beauty that Koreans are trying to live up to, others outside the country are wowed by the products and their efficacy to combat aging, wrinkles, skin discoloration and overall the quest for the fountain of youth that so many women worldwide are on. The 10-step Korean skincare routine (which I also just learned about!) is a huge phenomenon with adherents going deep (into their pores?!) to remove makeup and oils in order to maintain skin integrity is sweeping the world by storm much like the K-Pop craze.

Koreans measure beauty as quality of skin .

They have More steps in daily beauty routine.

So, what does it mean to Korean women to be beautiful?

Well it turns out that typical Korean women find standards of beauty to be defined as XYZ and whiteness... What you will see here (and in Japan especially) are women covering up with oversize visors, parasols and even UV arm protection bands in order to maintain the whiteness or their skin. As someone who has super olive Greek skin, and prefers to be tan (I just feel good with the Vitamin D!) this is quite a shock. But what does this say in today's world of racial politics, access and skin color? Is this healthy ladies?! How are we perpetrating this idea of perfection (through skincare) and fighting age... How are we covering up the truth of who we are as we age with makeup (and yes, sometimes I wear it) and with holding onto our youthful looks so desperately. Why are we so afraid of aging? And of course, the answer to that lies deeply in our hyper-mediated state of youth culture and obsession - of constantly seeing nubile 18-25 year old projections of beauty even advertising things to us that only a mature woman can afford (if ever?).

As this trend takes on even more Heightened Global awareness like on Youtube I am blown away by how much we all, men and women, continue to strive for this ideal of beauty. Hopefully we can come to realize our unique attributes and beauty at all stages of our life with all of our imperfections and insecurities part of the great puzzle.

How much of this is part of Korea's boom and youth-focused culture; is this the way of the world now?

So how does my skin look after this? Well, I tried to do multiple days in a row like these people do, and I couldn't hack it - after about the third day I felt like my skin had had enough hydration and extra products and my intuition started to kick in again around letting the skin do it's thing and just breathe. That being said, I did buy a few masks and have been doing about one a week just to re-hydrate because that does feel great and living on the road for the last 2 years has definitely taken it's toll on my skin. Perhaps I'm a bit nervous too having turned 40 this year, but I refuse to succumb to the fear of aging and instead claim my beauty in it. It's a great thing and gives us wisdom, knowledge and experience from which we can draw from and share with others.