Korean Beauty on a Budget - Survival in Korea

It's been over three years since I moved to Korea, but more than six years since discovering Korean skincare and makeup.

Here's a couple of lessons I've learned along the way on how to control my spending in Korea, how to get the products I love for cheaper and how to take advantage of being a resident instead of a tourist.

DISCLAIMER: I'm NOT affiliated with any of the brands or products mentioned. Just love me my makeup and skincare for cheap. :)

I remember the excitement of my first (uninformed) K-Beauty online purchase years ago. Of waiting for three weeks for that one package.

And then I remember going to South Korea for the first time and SPLURGING.
Back then (five years ago) online shopping wasn't yet as convenient and cheap, especially to my home country Switzerland. So of course, I had to go all-out in Korea and stock up on everything and anything. Perfectly reasonable:

• It's all cheaper than in online shops.
• No shipping!
• Products that can't be found online are everywhere
• Swatching and testing in store to prevent color mishaps make decisions easy

Really good reasons to spend a bit more, right?

Well, these reasons don't apply once you live here. Once I moved to Korea, I had to adjust my shopping habits - most of that happened subconsciously over the first year.

Suddenly, there was no time limit, and no reason to buy a lot at once.

Gradually, I learned enough Korean to find better deals than in the tourist districts.

Slowly, my perception changed from 'oh, a cream for just 20000\' to 'Heol (=Korean for 'WTF'), a cream for 20000\?!' - a combination of lower living costs and lower salaries made what once looked cheap just standard, or even expensive!

Temptation was everywhere. I had to stop myself from jumping at new products and shiny packaging all the time.

If you're in Korea for more than just a quick vacation, here are five tips to save on skincare and makeup, while still getting the products you'd wanted anyway.

CHOOSE YOUR FOCUS :

While it's great fun to buy anything that catches your eye on a vacation, I did get overwhelmed trying to choose what to buy once I started living in Korea permanently. THERE'S JUST TOO MANY BRANDS. 

The easiest trick for me to stay in control of my beauty cravings was zeroing in on the brands that worked for me in the past: Brands my skin loved, brands where the formulations have never (or barely ever) disappointed me, or that fit my general price class. I made the conscious decision to ignore the rest. Yes, there's cute packaging and nice formulations and interesting colors just about everywhere - but I'll see those one day by chance, while shopping with friends or by getting recommendations. 

Brands I focus on: Innisfree (my skin loves their stuff, no allergies, no sensitivity; great products for simple makeup looks), Mamonde (their cheap sheet mask line is holy grail status for me, plus all their 'Rose' products), Sidmool (for natural skincare products like oils) and I keep my eyes on Espoir and VDL for the rare splurge on high-quality color or base makeup.

Focusing on only a couple of brands that work for your skin, your sense of aesthetic, your budget and preferences in ecology friendliness/animal ingredients and so on keeps you from impulse buying duds, makes it easy to keep track of sales and interesting releases and to accumulate member benefits... which leads us to:

GET THOSE MEMBERSHIPS : 

As soon as you have an Alien Registration Card number, you can register for brand memberships and VIP programs. Depending on the brand, you'll get perks from higher sales (30% instead of 10% or 20%, for example) to points (that you can use to buy products in the future) to free gifts or birthday presents. Who doesn't love free stuff? 

'Greentea Club' Gifts from Innisfree I've been using up:
- A set of their super-food skincare with a Cleanser, Skin and Lotion
- A mixed bag of essences and creams and cleansers
- A small bottle of perfume

I've been on a no-buy from the beginning of November till now, beginning of February - but still got enough new products for free thanks to those memberships and by just using beauty points to buy specific stuff I've run out of. 

I'm a member of Amore Pacific (Iope, Mamonde, Laneige, Aritaum, Innisfree, Etude...) and then again specifically a member of Espoir, Aritaum and Innisfree for some extra VVIP perks. You gain VVIP (or Greentea Club for innisfree) status after a certain amount of money spent - which happened more or less automatically due to me buying skincare and makeup as gifts for whenever I went home to Switzerland. But even just the basic membership allows you to collect points, get birthday perks (extra points, 40% coupons...) and additional sale days throughout the month.

Recycling tip: Return your empty bottles and jars to Innisfree shops during their membership days to get a ton of beauty points! Returning them on normal days will still give you some points, too.

App recommendation: I downloaded the 'Beauty Point' app by accident when I actually wanted the Aritaum one. But no regrets! You get free points just for signing up, and can check the app for daily point events. 

BE PATIENT - A SALE WILL COME

Those sale days I mentioned? Every road-shop brand has them. Mostly over a weekend once month, with different discount rates depending on products and membership status. 

Patience is the key!

In my first year, if a brand came out with gorgeous looking lipstick colors, or new sheet masks, or just anything shiny, I'd pounce on it (as far as my wallet allowed, sigh). 

But the pattern soon became clear: A couple of weeks after a new release, those products would have an event sale, mostly a 1+1, to keep interest high after the first publicity flurry was over. 

Products that are higher up in the price range, like essences, serums and creams, don't do the buy-one-get-one-free but they will offer special sets or go on sale once a month.

• Plan ahead, buy your pricier skincare products like creams and essences on sale days or with birthday coupons, and take advantage of the event sales for lip products, eye shadows, mascara, facial mists, sheet masks... 

• This actually works on a smaller scale if you're a tourist, too. If you're in Korea for, let's say, 10 days, don't just buy all your things on the first day. You'll see the same stores everywhere, and at least some of your planned purchases will probably go on sale while you're in the country.

CHOOSE YOUR STORE

...or what I refer to as my 'hunting grounds'. Rawr!

Very likely, once you visit Korea, you'll be checking out shopping paradises in Seoul like Myeongdeong or Hongdae. There's stores of the same brands on pretty much every street.

They aren't all the same! 

Check out different stores in areas you frequent. Their product range will come in different sizes (less or more shades), new releases will arrive sooner or later and samples will be more or less generously given. 

• Some shops seem to ALWAYS be out of swatch-ready tester products. 

• Some shops are marketed towards tourists. Their sales assistants are mostly chosen for their language skills in Chinese and/or English, with lots of part-timers during vacation months. 

• Large flag-ship stores will have the prettiest decor and the newest releases, but will also be the first to sell out during events. 

I chose 'my' shops after learning some basic Korean. Being able to just ask questions and get actual useful information instead of just a promotional speech was a criteria. If you like to get recommendations for colors, be careful: Choose a store where you like the staff's makeup! Seriously! There's a tendency to just recommend the lightest base makeup shade and the bestselling lipstick color, no matter if it suits you, so finding a shop with staff that knows their stuff is essential.

Perks of going to 'your' shop: You know how everything's organized, you can get to know the permanent staff, have fun chatting - and I've found they'll give you more free samples or be forgiving if you show up late to pick up your gift sets etc. 

There's also the whole 'deer in headlights' thing that can be avoided by being a regular customer: Once the local staff knows that you speak even a little Korean/won't try to ask questions in English, they lose that panicked look when you come through the door. ;)

GO ONLINE

Yes, even if you live in Korea.

There's two ways of profiting from online shopping in Korea that I want to mention:

Brand Websites: 

• Most brands have 'online only' products that you can't find in physical stores. 
• If you want to take advantage of sale days when you don't have time to run to a store, you can shop for discounted products online.
• There's extra large sizes of bestseller products, or refill bags for cleansers and lotions, where you get more product for your money. Perfect if you want to re-buy your staples!

Third-Party Sellers:

Sites like the Korean gmarket, wemakeprice, ticketmonster and so on make it possible to find products at their sale price literally all the time. These third-party sellers are perfect for brands where you're not VIP member but would like to make one-time purchases. They allow you to use the site's general coupons for beauty products that are rarely on sale in their 'own' stores. These are the places where I go after limited editions (which are either sold-out or already discontinued) and get my higher-end makeup products for reduced prices. Why buy that VDL primer for 22000\ in store when I can get it for 16000\ online? 

As you can see, I love makeup and skincare. I have a kinda-beauty blog just because I want a reason to try pretty stuff and take pictures of it. But since I can't really prioritize beauty expenses (that honor goes to house payments, art supplies, family visits, FOOD :D) AND don't want to compromise when it comes to quality, I've become quite adapt at finding good deals, tempering my urges and planning ahead. If you're on a budget, I hope these tips can help you! 

Do you have some tips to stay on top of your beauty spending? How do you balance saving and 'treat yo self' bliss? Have you been to Korea and gotten some shopping done? :) 

Thanks for reading! <3

Meet the Artist Tag & What's in my Bag Illustration

Edit 2017.02.02 : 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.

It's been a while - maybe because the holidays never end (after Christmas and New Year, there the Lunar New Year just around the corner), maybe because I helped with the finishing touches of constructing a tiny house, maybe because I just don't wear makeup that often in winter, when my cafe shifts are reduced.

But lately, the #meettheartist tag has been doing its rounds on instagram again. It did so two years ago, too, and that was more or less the beginning of my whole social media presence.

It marked my jump from just working at my desk, for my publishing company, to actually sharing my drawings and my interests online, and it's been the most rewarding journey so far!

I really didn't have enough space on that one sketchbook page for both my likes/dislikes, a self-portrait AND the contents of my bag.

I use two bags: A small one for little errands, visiting friends and going out, and a large one for whenever I see a break in a cafe with enough space and wifi to work in on the horizon.

Since I've started an art portfolio site with its own art-focused blog (called 'Atelier' because I'm pretentious), I'll keep the bag break-down here to the beauty essentials:

Lip products are still a staple in my pouch, and I'm still a devout follower of Innisfree and Espoir when it comes to colors and textures (and prices, let's be real), but I've added the most delicious little lip balm by 'Hurraw!' to my collection. It tastes like coconut and I'll probably eat it one day by accident. 

You can find it here: Hurraw! Coconut Lip Balm (*) 

iHerb has been my savior since going vegan mid-2016, especially with their free shipping which is a blessing if I want to get my supplies to Korea.

Since winters are dry in Korea, my Hanyul Ja Woon Dan Moisturizing Cure Balm(*) has seen its return to my daily favorites. It works for everything, from under-eye wrinkles to nail cuticles. While Hanyul isn't the cheapest brand under the Korean sky, the investment was well worth it - I've been using the same tub for two years now and will have to hurry to use it all up before the expiration date gets embarrassing!

My winter cushion of choice is the Innisfree Ampoule Moisture Cushion, though I do prefer to wear a primer&foundation combo instead of cushions during the colder months, with the cushion only used for touching up.

For hand creams, I'm using up several old ones: 

- Innisfree Canola Honey, aka the scent from heaven.

- L'Occitane Creme Mains, aka the other scent from heaven.

L'occitane is more moisturizing, but also leaves my hands slightly greasy which is a big minus point for when I have to draw. I love to slather it on heavily whenever I leave the house, though!

I haven't changed all that much, have I?

Now 27 years old, I've become more organized, went from working for a publishing company to completely freelance, dabbled in new and fun art styles and adopted an annoying&cute street cat called Hedwig. 

By spring, I'll have been married for three years, two years will have passed since my last comic book (I really want to return to drawing comics, but freelancer life takes priority atm), and four years since I came to Korea for the first time. 

Thank you for sticking around and I hope you have a great 2017!

Hanbok Illustration, Korean Traditional Wedding and new Stickers!

I finally managed to update my Etsy shop with motives I'd wanted to create for a long time: Hanbok!

Story time:

For my Korean wedding, I wore a hanbok. We'd decided to buy one instead of going for a rental since there's things like Chuseok and Korean New Year where I can wear it again, (theoretically. It's a pain to put on.) so we wanted good quality and went to this UNBELIEVABLY BEAUTIFUL shop to choose fabrics and cuts and accessories and I still love everything about it.

I've been interested in the different styles, textiles and the historical evolution hanbok went through ever since.

Two of the illustrations are personal: The lavishly embroidered wedding hanbok (that one was on loan, worn on top of normal hanbok) and the simple red-green one which is inspired by what I wore.

Case in point. (And it's so hard to find wedding shots with only me pictured - which sounds very egoistical but hey, I'm trying to protect my family's anonymity :D)

So really, drawing hanboks? Great fun.

There's a total of six ladies, and I decided to make stickers with these because honestly, they're adorable. I have literally no idea what you'd ever need Hanbok stickers for, but who cares?
(worst sales pitch ever)

As always, my stickers are DIY self-cut ones. Since they're larger than my usual stickers, it's surprisingly easy to cut them - and since they're transparent, the occasional hick-up will be invisible anyway.

Size comparison of the original watercolor and ink drawings vs stickers. I really like how the floral patterns for these two turned out!

Two of the Hanbok ladies are available as mirrors in a card format. I chose the Gisaeng (on the right) and the pretty young lady.

The mirrors are made with stickers on a stainless steel surface, so they're sturdy and don't scratch easily - and since they're the same format as credit cards, they should fit into all kinds of purses and mobile phone cases.

Some additional sketches for Hanbok designs. Until now, I've mostly just focused on the Joseon period (which already features a huge variety of designs over the centuries), but since I've started working on a webcomic concept that's set a bit earlier, I'm looking forward to tackling the Goryeo period, too!

I'm also catching up with some Korean historical dramas / Sageuk. For research reasons. Of course. It's strange how I rarely manage to get past the mid-point of modern day dramas, but historical ones? I'll get totally invested. Maybe the themes just appeal to me more.

I didn't manage to get through Moonlight Drawn By Clouds (sketch above) but loved the pretty setting, costumes and the camera angles/lighting choices in the first couple of episodes. My all-time favorite has to be Queen Seon-Duk, Six Flying Dragons aaaand Arang, which is Fantasy but totally counts.

Thank you for reading this super short, very promotion-heavy blog post, but I'm trying to spread the Hanbok love here :) Hope you like the designs, and do tell me if you're into historical K-Dramas!

Journey to the East (of Jeju Island) - Illustrations and Webtoon-Snippets

This post will be a little different. There's no mention of makeup (gasp!) and there's mostly just photos instead of drawings.

I wanted to introduce the region of South Korea I've been living in for now nearly three years, namely the east of Jejudo or Jeju Island, including Pyeongdae, Sehwa (and its markets) as well as Hado.

Sketch of Sehwa-Ri, 2014

Most of the imagery that's shown of Jeju is somewhat beach-life-related, so instead I'll be taking you on a little tour along one of the countless hiking routes that lead around the whole island. Still lots of beaches, though. The trails are called Ollegil and one of them actually goes by where I live (as in, five meter distance from doorstep to hiking trail) so I'm a bit protective of these. Swiss ambassador for Jeju Olle hiking trails, right here!

On that note: My self-painted doorstep for the Bistro Gris.

The sun is intense on Jeju, so I did slap on some 50 SPF sunscreen (and well, since this IS a makeup blog, too, I'll mention that it was an innisfree one. Surprise.) and a hat. Looking like a ghost I made it through the afternoon without getting burnt (my hands and neck were another story... I need to get out more...)

Selfie before moving out! 

While there are some signs and menues translated into English, you might want to brush up on some Korean vocabulary when traveling outside of large cities. 

When my parents were visiting, I drew them a little language survival map, Jeju specific version. So, let's grab that and go!

First, there's the village we live in (husband, cat and me), Pyeongdae-ri. Located on the north-eastern coast of Jeju in the region called 'Gujwaeup', and Olle gil 21 is the one leading from the village eastwards. While we do technically live in the region of Pyeongdae-ri, we're so far on the outskirts that Sehwa-ri, the next village over, is much closer.

So, that's where we live and where the Bistro Gris is located. On we go!

Leave behind your cat... (sorry)

... and follow the trail until you reach the seaside of Sehwa. 

As with many of the small villages around Jeju, there's a lot of growth happening. While the east of the island is a lot more rural than the more touristy south or west (not to even mention the north and Jeju City), the last two years have seen a bit of an explosion in little cafes, guesthouses, rental houses, cute little shops, fleamarkets, farmer markets and of course tourists. While the large tourist groups (be it Chinese or Korean) visit mostly the south, the east has become popular among young couples, groups of friends or just in general people that want a more relaxed vacation. 

This makes for some interesting contrast, because old and new clash together quite a bit.

There's new dessert cafes next to seafood restaurant that have been there for decades. Agriculture and fishing are everpresent, but so are selfie-shooting tourists and modern guesthouses. 

If you pass Sehwa harbor on a saturday, you'll notice a lot of people gravitating towards the largest pier. That's the '벨롱장' (Bellongjang? Vellong?) flea market happening - which isn't really a flea market, since you won't find second-hand goods.

Missing Hedwig... :'(

 Instead, there's a lot of small stalls selling handmade necklaces, hats, pottery, woodwork, artfully woven hangings, hand-sewn mobiles, embroidery and decorations, as well as food and drinks. 

We even found kebab and mango lassi. There's freshly baked bread, bretzels, lots of juice and coffee, and a little fire to roast marshmallows over. 

The stalls tend to change a lot, so you might want to visit again soon... it's also been growing steadily over the last two, three years (when it started out with only a couple of tables) and keeps on growing!

If Saturday is not an option, try visiting on a day where the 오일장 / O-Il-Jang / Five-Day-Market is held. The 5th, 10th, 15th... and so on of every month. Less cute little stalls, more traditional restaurants, fried food, fresh vegetables, fruit and fish. 

The Oiljang is held in a roofed but open-walled building right next to the harbor - hard to miss, especially on market day!

Well, no luck there today.

So go on ahead for a few more minutes, and take some pictures at these cute little phot zones in front of the seaside cafes. 

Don't worry if you couldn't go to either market - you won't famish on the road. There's a lot of places selling dessert and coffee, as well as traditional restaurants. 

It starts like this...

... and keeps on growing. 

 Now that shopping and eating are out of the way, it's time to, you know, actually hike.

The Jeju Olle Trails are quite forgiving. While there are some sections that take up an entire day of walking, most can be done in three to six hours. And as long as they aren't leading into the mountains, you can more or less walk them in sandals (say hello to bugs and mosquitos, though).

There's simple markers in the form of ribbons guiding the way.

Say goodbye to the sea... for now!

After Sehwa, the trail will lead inland once it reaches the Haenyeo (Diving Women) Museum. If you've got enough time, take a look at that, too. The diving women are a part of Jeju's culture even today and the museum gives some insight into their past, too.

Depending on the season, you'll be able to see them diving in the sea anyways, or pass by large amounts of seaweed drying on the streets. 

An older sketch depicting the avid seafood collecting ajummas.

You'll probably also see locals as well as tourists collecting seafood among the rocks. If you want to have a taste, a lot of the seaside restaurants get deliveries straight from the diving women.

The trail will lead through some smaller hills and fields. Jeju's climate can be near-tropical in summer, but it really depends on what part of the island you visit. While the south sports palm trees, citrus fruits and cacti, the east coast is more of a carrot fields and pine trees kind of region.

There's a lot of stray dogs running around. Don't worry, they've got better things to do than chasing after humans. :)

Another sign to watch out for are these symbols, guiding the way in places where ribbons won't quite cut it.

As you follow the trail, you'll also visit some smaller villages with traditional houses made from Jeju black stone. There's even a fortress just before you hit upon the next larger settlement.

The fortress is a historical site, but people are still living all over the place.

Housing from a generation after the stone wall houses. There's so many of these small little houses all over the island, with the roofs painted either green, red or blue without exception. One housing unit consists of several of these small buildings - one for living, one for storage, one for cooking/working, for example.

Sometimes the color combinations get ambitious.

After about one hour of walking through hills, fields and villages and after crossing through the fortress, you'll reach the coast again at Hado-Ri. You can't miss the sign.
Smaller than Sehwa-Ri, it sports a beautiful beach at the end of the Olleh Gil as well as some old-fashioned guest houses in stone houses.

If you're a bit tired from literally no walking, go have a drink at one of the seaside cafes. Personal recommendation would be the Cafe Isla right there after you've seen the large 'Hado' sign - the couple leading the cafe are avid travellers and their menu card is all the more rich for it.

Found one of the crochet mobilees sold at the fleamarket in Sehwa. Isn't the diving woman cute?

Right on cue, we spotted a whole troupe of diving women / haenyeo after leaving the cafe to follow the coastline road again. They can be found easily - you'll hear the high-pitched sound of their breathing even from very far away. At first, I thought I was hearing sea gulls, but since the haenyeo don't use any diving equipment beyond glasses and have to hold their breaths for a long time, the first intake after reaching the surface is audible before you can even see them. 

Considering that most of these women are well over their fifties, the bodily work they do is even more impressive. 

Another half hour of walking brings you to the beach of Hadori. There's canoes to be taken out into the water, so you might want to make a longer stop here.

Hadori sketch from spring 2016

After Hadori, the 21st Olle Gil continues along the beach, then moving inwards again and up one of the larger hills (Oreum) of Jeju island. 

We were in a hurry, so we didn't follow the way to its end on that day.

Made it home just in time to watch the sunset and give some love to our lonely cat. 

The view from the Bistro Gris ~ 

That's it for this little photography and illustration heavy blog post. 

I really love the region we live in - and Jeju island in general - so I'm happy I could do this little introduction!

Below is a snippet from a webtoon I'd been drawing in 2014, retelling my first time traveling to Korea and Jeju (and Asia in general) with a friend and meeting my now-husband (then-hostelstaff) while doing so. Thematically relevant. Totally.