Summertime Skincare

Summertime is upon us and I really want to make sure my skin is happy and nourished during the warmer months. The two key ingredients I'm focusing on are green tea and aloe.

My favourite products recently are the aloe toner and aloe gel from Nature Republic. My skin has been nice and blemish free recently and I'm hoping to keep it that way.

Soothing and Moisture Aloe Vera 90% Toner
  This smells amazing and is super refreshing! I decided to try it instead of getting another bottle of the Body Shop's aloe toner, and I think I like this one better! Also it was less expensive. Bonus!

Soothing and Moisture Aloe Vera 92% Soothing Gel
  This gel is a major multitasker! One of the things I love about this for summer is how light this is. It soaks in really quickly and feels cool. When the weather really heats up, I will move this stuff into my fridge to make it extra refreshing! I use it to sooth my legs and pits after a shave that was maybe a little too close. My favourite application so far is under my eyes. Normally I wear glasses. In hot weather I cannot stand the way the slide down my nose. Enter contact lenses. My glasses are quite dramatic and (conveniently) hide the bags under my eyes. Without my glasses, all I see are my puffy under eyes! Using the aloe gel under my eyes before bed has seriously helped with this. I've only been doing this for a few days and I already notice a difference!

Fresh Green Tea 70 Cream
  I've been looking into the beauty benefits of green tea and am so thrilled with this impulse buy from my New Years Korea vacation. Benefits include: sun damage protection, helps with inflammation, tones skin, reduces redness and prevents wrinkles. Yes please! How awesome is all that? Protection from sun damage is no reason to stop with the SPF. Think of them as being more complementary than interchangeable. The antioxidants in green tea don't block the sun, but they do help your skin to repair itself.

This "cream" is really a gel, and it doesn't cut it for me as night time moisturiser, but that's when I like to use it. I pair it with the Puru Puru Serum from Ettusais.

What do you think of my summer skincare trio? What ingredients do you look for during the summer months?

Leave me a comment!

Korean Beauty Haul!

 

Before going to Korea, I did a little research to know what products or brands to look out for. I looked online and asked a few friends who had already been there. I didn't want to venture into anything too expensive, and I'm a sucker for pretty packaging. I'm also drawn to products that advertise as having more natural ingredients, which was lucky since that seems to be trendy among Korean brands. Watch my Korean haul video. Here are the brands I ended up buying from.

Nature Republic

http://www.naturerepublic.com/eng/

As the name suggest, the philosophy of Nature Republic is to make products from natural ingredients. The base for all their products is what they call "MD water", which is just clean water from different parts of the world with "various precious natural ingredients." 

The Face Shop

http://international.thefaceshop.com/index.jsp

Here's another brand wanting to share the best of nature with you, the consumer. In their 'brand story' they talk about the wisdom of nature and its many benefits. Reviews of this brand have commented that their ingredients have room to improve, and contain more chemicals than advertised. However, they seem to be moving in the right direction!

Skin Food

http://eng.theskinfood.com/

Another explanatory name, Skin Food's products aim to feed your skin, making it healthy for "14 years, not just 14 days." I loved the products here but the sales staff at Skin Foods (I visited 4 or 5) are quite pushy, and followed me around the store trying to up-sell products, which I hate. 

Etude House

http://www.etudehouse.com/

Etude House is all about play, and colour. They think beauty should be anything but mundane, and want their products to help you feel like a princess.

Too Cool for School

https://www.toocoolforschool.com/

This brand is newer, starting in 2010, and sports artsy, creative packaging. They are all about being artistic, nonconformist punks.

I will start posting reviews for some of these products this week! So far I am loving everything I picked up and can't wait to go back!