Etude House and Gmarket Haul

Hi everyone! Wow, a whole month has flown by since my last post. I truly apologize that I haven't had time to post as often as I'd like. Please understand and I will try to post whenever I can, although it will probably be very infrequent compared to before.

This past month, Etude House had a 30% off winter sale! Korean brands like Etude House have their own mini shops on Gmarket (search for 에뛰드하우스★직영샵). I try to check Gmarket's beauty calendar at the beginning of every month to see which brands are having sales. Another thing I do is follow Facebook pages for Korean beauty brands like Etude House, because if the brand is having a sale in Korea, often it will also have the same sale on Gmarket! Shopping the sales can be a great way to accommodate the shipping costs, especially for the U.S.

Here is my beautiful haul! It looks small but took a lot of thought and will power to only buy what was "necessary," keke.

SkinFood Haul

Hi everyone! I have missed you all so much! Where did the last three weeks go?! They just flew by, without leaving me a moment to blog. Aside from my makeup artistry class, I also started a new side job which has been taking up most of my free time. I'm really sorry I just disappeared but I simply didn't have the time. Please forgive me? I will try to make time for blogging. *fingers crossed*

Moving on...as you may already know, SkinFood is one of the most popular affordable skin care brands in Korea. Aside from being very affordable (as in drugstore prices; each item below cost less than $20 USD), they have really cute packaging for all their many skin care lines, the most popular of which is probably the Peach Sake line. I have tried some of their products, which have varied between hit-or-miss for me, but I just couldn't resist the attractive pricing and packaging while I was in Korea.

Without further ado, I present to you my SkinFood haul!

Review: SkinFood Facial Water Vita-B and Vita-C Series

After finishing my Innisfree Green Tea face cream, I switched to this SkinFood Facial Water Vita-C Face Cream that I had used before and wanted to finish before trying a new moisturizer. Since I hadn't reviewed it before, or the Vita-B Face Cream, I thought I'd combine them into one blog post.

Review: Skin Factory Vega VitaPlex Ampoule Mask

Disclaimer: This product was provided by Natural Radiance for the purpose of review. I did not receive any monetary compensation and my review is completely honest and unbiased.

Gmarket Korean Beauty Haul

I recently decided to satisfy my lust for new Korean skin care and beauty products with a massive Gmarket haul. (Okay, maybe not massive, but the bill was not a small one.) Although shipping from Korea to the U.S. can be a bit pricey, Gmarket does offer sales on certain beauty brands that you can check at their monthly beauty calendar.

Belated Birthday Gift and New Toy

Yes, yes, my birthday was over a month ago but I decided to get myself a late birthday gift. I like to treat myself since so far, no one will ever love me like I love me, haha, and I'd rather spoil myself instead of waiting around expecting someone else to do it. =P So after much debate, I gave in and got myself my first DSLR, the Canon EOS Rebel T4i (with 18-135mm EF-S IS STM Lens). Yay!!

(Camera images from Amazon)

Review: Innisfree Green Tea Seed Cream

Following up with the Innisfree Green Tea Seed Serum, here is my review of The Green Tea Seed Cream from the Korean natural brand Innisfree.

Review: Innisfree Green Tea Seed Serum

Hey everyone! Today I'm reviewing one of my purchases from Korea, a best seller from Korea's first natural cosmetics brand Innisfree, The Green Tea Seed Serum. I was very excited to try Innisfree products since they are nature-based and the green tea ingredient is 100% organic and from Jeju Island.

Review: Beauty Clinic Collagen Impact Essential Mask

Disclaimer: This product was provided by Natural Radiance for the purpose of review. I did not receive any monetary compensation and my review is completely honest and unbiased.

Review: Etude House Darling Cream (Snail Healing)

I'd heard that snail products were the latest rage in Korean skin care products so of course, I had to pick up at least one item to try while I was in Korea! In general, snail mucin is supposed to be beneficial for skin due to its anti-aging and acne-reducing properties. Naturally I was both curious and eager to see if it would actually work for me. Most Korean skin care brands carry at least one snail mucin product so there are many options to choose from. I decided to try the Etude House Darling Cream (Snail Healing).

Review: Beauty Clinic MediHeal I.P.I Lightmax Ampoule Mask

Disclaimer: This product was provided by Natural Radiance for the purpose of review. I did not receive any monetary compensation and my review is completely honest and unbiased.

Nanta Show and Cherry Blossoms in Hongdae

After having so much fun catching Key's "Catch Me If You Can" musical, I decided to see another show while I was in Seoul. This time I made my way to to the Hongdae Nanta Theater. Nanta is a very popular South Korean musical that has a simple plot and is basically an entertaining performance using cooking instruments like cutting boards and knives to create the rhythms and music. It's mostly non-verbal and is supposedly comparable to Blue Man Group.

Review: Etude House Precious Mineral BB Cream Bright Fit Honey Beige W24

This was actually the first beauty item I bought while I was in Seoul and is my current go-to BB cream and base makeup product. This is also my first Etude House BB cream that I've used.

Etude House Dear My Blooming Lips-talk Lipsticks

Happy Friday!! Here are the six lovely lippies I got from Etude House while I was in Seoul. Might I refresh your memory of my love for SHINee? It boggles my mind how much Etude House must make from SHINee crazed fangirls (and...fanboys, keke)..obviously, myself included. XD

Sinchon and Edae (Ewha Woman's University)

To me, the coolest places to hang out around Seoul are near the universities. This might sound odd if you are past your college years, but these districts are young, vibrant, and fashionable with a down-to-earth vibe. My kind of atmosphere.

There are several university neighborhoods but I started with Sinchon or Sinchon-dong 신촌동 and Edae 이대 (short for Ewha Woman's University 이화여자대학교). They are very close to each other, just one subway stop away, and Sinchon is also a subway stop away from Hongdae (short for Hongik University 홍익대학교, sort of like how we say So Cal for Southern California; if you don't know, Koreans love to shorten terms to make one word), but I'll talk about Hongdae in another post. Sinchon is also very close to Yonsei University, Sogang University and Myongji University.

Edae is very quaint, cute, trendy and most importantly, affordable! That's to be expected, since it's near a women's university. You don't have to worry about getting ripped off here if you're immediately pinpointed as a tourist. Sales people are also not pushy, and I felt I didn't stand out so much since in this area, since I could easily pass for a student or professor (in other words, foreigner doesn't necessarily equal tourist, as it does in tourist hot spots like Myeongdong). I didn't walk around the campus but I certainly did take a walk down "fashion street."

see, I told you Dunkin' Donuts is everywhere in Seoul!

Bongeunsa Temple and Cherry Blossoms in Yeouido

I meet up with friends and we visited Bongeunsa 봉근사, a Buddist temple in Gangnam 강남 and across from COEX Mall. A little back history: It was built in 794, reconstructed in 1498, mostly destroyed by fire in 1939 and then later in the Korean War in the early 1950s. Now it has been mostly restored and is a large tourist destination spot.

For someone who's not even Buddhist I took tons of pictures. Perhaps I was just overly eager to share and also it was a beautiful day. It finally felt like spring!

Spring flowers and cherry blossoms along the road, just outside of Gangnam Station 강남 역

Etude House Haul and SHINee

Without further ado, I present to you...the beautiful unveiling of my Etude House haul from Myeongdong. Please be forewarned that this post is extremely picture heavy and also filled with lots of pink.

Ahhh the glory...

Their latest hot item for spring is the Dear My Blooming Lips-Talk lipstick. Long story short, I ended up with two gift sets, enticed by the SHINee notebooks they came with.

Innisfree Haul from Myeongdong

Here is my first skincare haul from Myeongdong, Seoul! I have more but think it would be too much for one post, keke. Innisfree is a natural Korean skincare brand. I had heard of the brand before but never tried any of their products, nor was I previously aware that it was a natural brand so of course I was intrigued and wanted to try their products.

I promise it had nothing to do with Lee Minho (of Boys Over Flowers kdrama fame) being the Innisfree poster boy. (Sadly, I did not see any Innisfree posters of him or else I would have asked for one, keke! All I saw were Yoona promos.)

eco-friendly Lee Minho

Myeongdong, Korean Beauty Shopping Mecca

Myeongdong 명동 is a must if you want to shop, especially for Korean skin care and cosmetics! I loved it so much, I went there several times during my trip, kekeke (and I still didn't get to go into every store!).

It is very touristy so there's usually a sea of people. The only time I saw it clearing out was at 10pm, closing time. Its being such a popular tourist destination means you will see and hear a lot of foreigners and in some shops (but not all) the sales assistants speak English, Japanese, and Chinese. (Truthfully I'd only encountered two who spoke fluent English; a sales girl in Nature Republic and in Etude House.) Koreans spoke to me in everything...I found it a bit interesting that they had no clue what ethnicity I am. In my mind, I'd thought Asians could distinguish other Asians, especially if they live in Asia, but apparently that wasn't the case, at least in my experience. They seemed to just randomly guess any Asian ethnicity including Thai, Japanese, Filipino and Chinese. (I was very surprised when one asked me if I was Vietnamese!)

Anyways, on with the pics!

I liked to enter from the Myeongdong exit on the subway near Migliore, a Korean department store.

Kpop idols are much loved in Seoul and you can find their ads and endorsements plastered everywhere and anywhere, but I'll have to do a separate post on that. Here's a huge 4minute endorsement for Shoemarker. (I like 4minute a lot, by the way; that is I like listening to their songs but don't know who's who aside from Hyuna.)

Gwanghwamun Square and Gyeongbokgung Palace

I did the touristy thing and visited Gwanghwamun 광화문 Square and Gyeongbokgung Palace 경복궁 in downtown Seoul. We started by walking from Cheonggyecheon 청계천 stream. This is a very popular spot so you may have seen it in Korean dramas (such as Iris!).