Unless you have been living under a rock where beauty news and trends don’t reach you, you have probably been hearing all about K Beauty recently.
K Beauty, which stands for Korean Beauty, is a term that includes both skin care and makeup products that are exported from South Korea to places like Hong Kong, China, and the United States, which are the three biggest markets for K Beauty. K Beauty is now so popular in the United States that it has been picked up by beauty mega-stores such as Sephora, who sells Korean beauty brands like Tatcha and Boscia, and Ulta, who sells brands like Tonymoly and Skinfood. According to WWD, even CVS is slated to jump on the Korean beauty bandwagon throughout April.
K Beauty is also known for crazy beauty regimens, such as 10-step and even 20-something-step skincare regimens that some women follow religiously. However, it’s not the number of steps that makes the regimen so effective, it’s the emphasis on finding products that fit your exact needs, and layering them to create the desired effect.
The emphasis of K Beauty is on gentleness, which seems worlds away from the American love of harsher products, such as Clarisonic brushes and microdermabrasion. The products’ ingredients are often natural or nature-based with an emphasis on new technology, and are featured in irresistible, brightly colored packaging.
According to SoKo Glam, a website dedicated to all things glamorous in South Korea, the basic 10 step regimen is as follows: oil-based cleanser, water-based cleanser, exfoliation, toner, essence, serum, sheet mask, eye cream, moisturizer, and finally sun protection. While this long list might seem daunting at first, there are several easy ways to add some of these into your daily, or even weekly, skin care routine.
Oil Cleansers
The first thing I tried when adding K Beauty steps into my obsessive regimen was an oil cleanser, specifically the Rice Water Bright Cleansing Oil by The Face Shop, which cost me less than $15 on Amazon. The whole point of oil cleansing is to wipe away all makeup from your skin before cleansing your skin with your regular cleanser, that way the cleanser you use after will do its job easily on bare skin as opposed to fighting through layers of makeup first. Also, oil cleansers are much more gentle on your delicate eye areas than makeup wipes, which are so easy and tempting but can easily damage the wrinkle-prone areas on your face with all of that tugging. The oil cleanser I selected came in a bottle with a pump, and two small pumps had enough product for me to gently massage my whole face, and was really effective in removing off all of my makeup, even my stubborn mascara!
Sheet Masks
A second easy way to incorporate K Beauty into your routine is with sheet masks. These are individually packaged cloth masks, a similar texture and weight to a makeup-removing wipe, which are soaked in products that are designed to target specific skin concerns, such as acne, redness, or hydration. My advice, even to those who have oily skin, is to stick to any mask that targets brightness, hydration, or radiance, as these are soaked up into the skin the easiest and have the most benefits. The masks that I have tried by Tony Moly are fantastic, but they are so common that even Sephora makes their own brand. Try applying one sheet mask twice a week and let it sit on the skin for at least 15 minutes before rinsing off the residue or gently pat the remainder into your skin and neck. My trick is to do this while watching Netflix for up to a half hour, and my skin feels glorious after!
Essence
The third way to incorporate K Beauty into your regimen is with an essence. Essences are like a hybrid between a toner and a serum, and are part of the treatment stage of the Korean Beauty skin care regimen. The best rule of thumb to follow with skincare is to go from the lightest product and work your way up to the heaviest. Essences come right after the lightest which is a toner, which is usually the consistency of water, and right before a serum and a moisturizer, which tend to be much thicker and viscous. Essences have a concentrated formula which is meant to be applied to the whole face, and is focused on enriching the skin as a whole, as opposed to serums which target one specific area that has one specific concern.