Korean Summer Survival Makeup Favorites

Summer in Korea. 

I wake up in the morning to 30°C in my bedroom-office aka coolest part of the house. It will only get worse. Air-conditioning sucks our wallets dry. 

We persevere. My makeup mostly doesn't.  ( ╯°□°)╯ ┻━━┻

After some trial and error over the last few years, I think I've got my makeup routine for 95% humidity levels down.

Most of the days, it begins and ends with sunscreen, lip tint and eyebrows.

Edit 2017.02.09 : This post contains affiliate links (additionally marked with an * asterisk in the blog post), meaning I will make a small commission from anything you buy. View my 'About' page for the full disclaimer and my review policy! All products are purchased by me.

I've got two sunscreens on rotation, one being the the Nature Republic California Aloe Sun Block in SPF50 PA+++. It's one with a glowy finish but slight white cast. I like to use it on its own, since it has any base makeup layered on top melt right off again. The glowy finish does look a bit oily after a while, but for the first two to three hours, my skin looks radiant and evened-out. Perfect for stints in the garden or quick trips outside. Careful though - this sunscreen has a habit of making my eyes tear up if I get too close to that area.

The second one is the Innisfree Eco Safety Perfect Sunblock in SPF50 PA+++. This one is the opposite of the Nature Republic one above, with a matte, slightly drying finish that absorbs into my skin really well. It works well on its own, but also works really well as a makeup base. While it's too drying for me normally, it's perfect for the months of July and August.  It helps keeping moisturizing or glowy foundation formulations in place.

On days when I'm moving about a lot, I powder my eyelids/eyebrow area, my nose and forehead with the Innisfree No-Sebum Mineral Powder (the loose version). This works like a charm for everything, even as a quick-fix dry shampoo and improvised eye shadow base. You probably already heard of this powder from just about every beauty blogger, ever...? It's that good and cheap!

Innisfree No-Sebum Mineral Powder (*) -
 the loose version makes for an even more invisible finish than the pact version! 

For additional staying power (especially if I'll be applying some sort of foundation/cushion) I prime with the Innisfree No-Sebum Mineral Primer. Some previous pore-hiding primers that I've tried were a bit of an over-kill, drying out my skin to a point where the foundation on top looked flakey and overly dry. This one strikes a nice balance of evening out skin texture, keeping oil under control but not making a desert out of everything.

If I don't finish with a cushion (normal days), but want something that looks good all day long without touching up, I reach for this wonderful thing:

The Espoir Nude Fit Liquid Foundation. This one is magical for summers. It doesn't dry out (stay away from the 'Powder' version of this product if you tend to have dry skin, though: That one's way more heavy-duty), has better coverage than cushions but looks really natural all the same, with a satiny finish. It's the perfect foundation for long days outdoors, in the city, hopping from overly air-conditioned places to the humid air outside and back. It stays put. No budging. Hair doesn't stick to it.

I've had this for a year, and I'd use this every day if it weren't a bit too expensive.

Espoir in general has great foundations with a lot more shades available than other Korean brands. This particular one comes in five shades, but their Pro Tailor Foundation, for example, comes in eleven shades total.

I use 'Porcelain', which is lighter than even the #13 option by Innisfree, but with yellow undertones.

For color, I've got two recent favorites I reach for all the time for daily makeup.

The first is my trusted Vivid Rouge Tint by Innisfree (favorite for years and years), in a new 2016 shade #11 called 'Sun-dried Peach'. It's a slightly muted, 'dried out' pink-coral that looks good with just about anything. In summer, when I go away from my usually gray-black-white wardrobe, matching lipstick colors to shirt colors becomes an actual thing, and this one is a safe bet. It brightens up my complexion, looks cute while still being work-appropriate.

My other daily choice is a shade from the Innisfree autumn release of 2015, the Real Fit Lipsticks. I went to swatch their five new shades released for the Spring/Summer season, but fell in love with #6 Latte Cup Coral instead. Similar to my #8 Rosy Latte, this one is a muted version of a coral shade, walking the line between a beige and orange for the perfect hint of color that doesn't overwhelm. It's perfect for a put-together work look, combined with beige or yellow clothing, and for sleek looks that focus on just eyeliner (I've been doing these a lot lately when I'm trying to actually look my age...).

The last new addition to my summer makeup favorites is an eyebrow product by Mamonde. They released a combination of a eyebrow tint and eyebrow mascara on a single wand - using the doe-foot like tip to fill in the brows and then the mascara brush attached below to keep everything in place. I was afraid it would be a hassle to use, but it's a quick, fuss-free if not very precise way of getting my brows done. Looks really natural and is waterproof.

That's it for my summer survival makeup favorites. I'll probably be making a review complete with swatches for the Real Fit Lipstick since the shade is just that gorgeous, but do tell me if you'd like to see some other product in more detail! Thanks for reading!

If all else fails, at least there's ice cream!


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REVIEW: Espoir No Wear S - Favorite Korean Lipsticks

This review pf the Espoir No Wear S Lipstick in 'Jealousy' is part of a series because my love for coral lipsticks lead to quite the collection.

Drew this when I still thought I could put several lipsticks of one shade into one single post...
So naive.

I really wanted to do some quick reviews and swatches of ALL my Korean lipsticks in one big blog post. Then, looking at all the stuff I've hoarded, I decided to split it up into color groups - the leader in numbers being the coral-orange camp.

Looking at all the images I had for just ONE of the lipsticks, I gave up on that idea and will be doing these one by one like a sane person. :'D

So my favorite shade goes first! It's part of the No Wear S line and the color is called 'Jealousy'.

'Jealousy' is the orange shade on the very right.
Image source and collection overview on Espoir's official site.

Espoir has some of the widest color selections I've seen on the Korean market and I'd had my eyes on like ten of them for a while. When the limited collection called 'Pastel Punch' came around in Spring 2015, I finally caved and got my first 'middle range'-y priced lipstick. At 19,000\ it clocked in at more than double the price than any other lipstick I've bought in Korea. So, of course, I had high expectations for this!

Espoir 'Pastel Punch' Collection Packaging

The packaging is sleek and adorable. The matte plastic feels high quality, is light enough to carry around and robust enough to not be endangered by the mess that is the interior of my bag.

Superficial as I am, the color was what caught my eye first, though! It's the most gorgeous shade of pastel lavender, reminding me of macarons for some reason.

The shade's name is printed on the bottom.

A really nice touch is the mint colored ring only visible when the lipstick cap is removed. (prettyyy.....)

The cap itself is magnetic and it feels so luxurious to open it and snap it back on! Love the packaging overall, as you can see.

Everything is just so pretty!!

The shade is a coral, I THINK. Seriously, I'm so unsure about what to call it. It's coral leaning to orange one moment, and when I move into slightly different light, it's more pink.

I mean, look at this:

Pink?

... orange??

I literally moved my hand ten centimeters and angled it a tad differently and it went from a warm pink (?) to a pastelly orange (???) and I don't understand colors at all.

Maybe I should just describe it as a bright pastel coral and leave it at that.

There's some embossing going on~

The lipstick line of Espoir that goes under the 'No Wear' tag is said to be a 'Retouch Free', 'Weight Free' and 'Smudge Free' formulation. The 'S' stands for Semi-Matte and it's a creamy, moisturizing formula with a slight sheen that dries to more of a matte after some time. All three shades of their Pastel Punch Collection fall under that category, and even if this specific shade is now maybe hard to find, the same citeria apply to the rest of the No Wear S group.

Let's take it apart by that.

Smudge Free: It actually doesn't transfer, except for when it moves into the liplines, then it will transfer a bit when drinking, for example.
I went to the beach and swimming and even diving with this on, and it was still left as a nice corally hue after all that. It doesn't stain, though, just fades very slowly (and not always prettily).

Weight Free: It does feel nice, velvety and light on the lips. Despite drying into a nearly matte finish, it feels creamy when applied. I like the feel of it, if it weren't for the sticking-to-dry-patches factor, which brings me to:

Retouch Free: Ahaha, nope. This is high maintenance. It sticks to everything that's not perfect and sinks into lines. Being smudge-proof makes it hard to retouch, too, as it's difficult to dab away the previously applied layer before re-applying.

When I want to wear this, I need to do lip scrubbing, lip balming and re-apply at least once during the course of the day.

It works if I wear it on a vacation or a lazy day in the city when I have time to retouch, but not so much when running errands or working.

Maybe because of that, this color makes me feel like I'm on a vacation even when I'm not - it's my go-to shade for when I feel like I want to spend some time on myself, haha. Also, it forces me to do lip scrubs, which could be seen as a plus, I guess.

I wrote at the very beginning of this post that it's my favorite shade of lipstick. Not my favorite lipstick, or favorite formulation - but the color saves it all for me.

I'm pale and sometimes my beloved orange shades make me look kind of sickly. Pink shades, on the other hand, rarely suit my mood - they tend to make me look even paler and younger. (strange problems I have...)

This is the perfect in between. It's cool-toned enough to fit my skintone, but there's the orange hue to it that I love. It's eye-catching if applied on the full lips because it's a quite bright and unique shade, but it can be toned-down (just dabbing it on in one layer) to suit heavier eye-makeup. I rarely do much with my eyes, so I depend on lip colors to do the heavy lifting.

From far away, the dry patches aren't even visible. Victory!!

All in all, this is such a mixed bag, but I love it anyway!

I love the color, the pigmentation, the semi-matte finish, the gorgeous packaging, the slightly sweet scent, the long-lasting qualities and that it doesn't transfer. I've found ways to work around the the downsides of this lipstick - mainly to moisturize and accept that no-one but myself actually will look at my lips that closely to even notice the dry patches.
Maybe those would be more visible with a darker shade, though, so I'm kinda hesitant about trying another shade from the same line.

Espoir's No Wear lipsticks also come in a confusing amount of different versions, like their basic, first 'No-Wear' line, then the 'No Wear Glam' and 'No Wear Touch' (which are shiny and more like a balm respectively), 'No Wear G' for glam/glossy, 'M' for matte, and newly their 'Lustre' line which looks very moisturizing. As mentioned before, Espoir's color selection is HUGE, ranging from the typical pinks and reds to nudes, oranges, purple and everything in between.

Will have to do some in-store swatching!

So, if you're looking for some special shade that requires a bit of work but is worth the effort, have a look around!

Update 2016: You can find some of my makeup illustrations in form of stickers and prints in my Etsy Shop :D