Amazon is expensive

You know what’s crazy? That I’m willing to pay £25 for skin care if it’s from Korea, but turn my nose up at Simple unless it’s on offer. You know what’s even more crazy? The price difference in the same Korean beauty products.

In my last Amazon shop, I decided to finally take the plunge and fork out for the Benton Snail Bee Essence. Then, literally days later, I found it on Yesstyle for literally half the price. Sure, I get that Yesstyle isn’t exactly located in the UK and I was very much going for UK based sellers on Amazon, but still, that’s a crazy price drop.

I then decided to look for the Neogen Bio Peel Gauze Pads, and found them to be cheaper on Amazon. There wasn’t much difference in the Nature Republic Snail Essence, but the Klairs Vitamin C Drop, a product I really want to try, is well over double the price on Amazon as it is on Yesstyle, as is the Heimish All Clean Balm.

I very much looked to Amazon as a really exciting way to get my Korean skincare hit, but actually I’ve been spending far more than I should, purely for the privilege of speedy delivery. Sometimes, the products I wanted didn’t even ship from the UK, so if I was having them delivered from Korea anyway, why not look elsewhere?

I used to like Yesstyle, I have brought a fair amount from there in the past, back in the days when you had to spend £90 to meet the delivery threshold, but now it’s only £25. I just had this connection in my head that Yesstyle was clothes, even though I knew they did beauty too. I even brought a load of BB creams from there. There are other options too, I follow Wishtrend on YouTube but have yet to explore their delivery system as I think it’s slightly more complex than normal. While researching for this post, I came across a website called Beauty and Seoul which I’m very excited about as a UK based business that seem competitively priced. Their website is actually really nice, with individual recommendations from the sites founder  and a how to use section on each product. They don’t have the a huge collection, but they have more than enough, especially CosRX, a brand which I can’t find on Amazon.

Tl;dr version - I’m want to spend a fortune on Korean skincare, and do, but maybe I don’t need to spend quite as much.

Forever Five

I haven’t done very well at blogging through February, have I?

It’s been a busy few days since I last posted. The end of the half term at school was dominated by trying to get my GCSE group to finish the planning pages of their controlled assessment, which they thankfully managed by the skin of their teeth, and then whizzing down South for Eleanor’s birthday weekend. Theno1moo today ....

Ok what the eff. I typed then today and for some reason, it autos to theno1moo?? WHAT.

Anyway. Then today I had to head home for a hospital appointment about my weird stripey eye that is so insignificant than future Heather reading this will have no idea what I’m talking about, before hearing back down south again.

Of course Agi has come down with me. She’s settled right in, but I don’t think she enjoyed the journey much. There was a lot of meowing. Two and a half hours of it, non-stop, in fact. But she’s happy now, and I’m happy, and I’m also pretty sure my parents are happy too.

I read an article today about Shinee’s concert. They had five microphones for the last stage, the centre one empty for Jonghyun. It must have been so hard for them, not only to have to rearrange all the songs, but to have to perform without him, to have the grief of their fans so evident. I can’t quite bring myself to find any fancams yet, the articles suggested it was quiet and somber. It’s a shame, because Shinee concerts always had a reputation for being fun and silly and lighthearted. I hope as their tour goes on, it becomes easier and the boys can enjoy themselves. I think he would have wanted that.

Why I don't drink caffeine

This evening, a couple of my girl friends came round for dinner. We sat at the dining table and everything. They brought Pepsi max, and I had half a glass. Now it's one in the morning and I'm sat in bed wide awake.

I'm not used to caffeine anymore. I gave it up a few years ago (it's documented on this blog somewhere) and it was horrible. The headaches. The tiredness. The general feeling like crap. Then I started Slimmimg World, and for some reason, it being free meant that I should have cola again, and so it crept back into my life. I came back to my senses when the tunnel vision started to return, and now normally stay away. Tonight was a mixture of laziness because I couldn't be bothered to get anything else, and wanting to belong because that's what the others were drinking.

It is not worth it. I'm now wide awake but my mind is tired, and I have a headache. Urgh.

In slightly related news, I think I'm addicted to Korean skincare. I've joked before, but now I'm really starting to wonder. You know when you order something on amazon and it'll tell you "spend £* to qualify for free delivery"? I always use that as an excuse to buy something under the pretence that I'm saving money. I'm not. Delivery will normally be a couple of pounds, and the products are rarely under £15. I'm supposed to be counting the pennies, and instead I'm ordering essences all over the place. I have one due to arrive tomorrow, which was making up the total on my nieces birthday presents, but I still ordered another one this evening to make up the cost of some more Mediheal sheet masks. So I have the Mizon Watery First Essence and the Benton Snail Bee Essence on the way, both of which I'm very excited by. Now I just need CosRX on amazon ...

Ever since I finished the green Mediheal masks, I can feel my skin getting worse, bubbling up under the surface. In all fairness, it could still be the Nature Republic Snail essence, as I finished that at around the same time, but seeing as I can get the masks in the UK for about £15-17, and the essence is only from Korea and last time cost me about £25 plus a £12 customs charge (!!!), I figure I'll try the sheet masks again first. I did love the Nature Republic snail essence though ... sigh. I was trying the orange Vita lightbeam masks, but I'm not loving those as much as the green healing ones. The serum is slightly thicker and more sticky, but I think pairing them up and alternating with the healing ones might work well. Prevent and heal break outs and then fade discolouration.

Right, I should stop typing now and distract my heavily caffeinated brain with drama instead. I've just started Just Between Lovers and so far I'm loving it. It's beautifully shot. Plus 2pm's Junho is the perfect mix of kind hearted bad boy.

I just wish dramas didn't have such lovey dovey titles.

Black Hole

I was going to properly post today. I got home and ready for bed in plenty of time, and even chose not to start a new drama so I could post and then get an early night.

Then I went on instagram and now, somehow, it's an hour later.

It's amazing how the internet can suck hours from your life. Think how much more time people must have had before the internet cane along. How productive they must have been.

I'd still rather lose hours on the internet than not have it though.

I Will Do Better

I haven't done very well with posting in the past few days. I've thought of things to write about every single day, but for some reason, rather than writing a post when I think about it, I wait until right before I go to sleep, and by then I'm so tired that I just fall asleep instead. I'll try to remember to post earlier from now on. After all, there is nothing to say I have to blog from my bed while half asleep, although the sleep posts of 2012 always did amuse me.

I just weighed myself. I haven't for months, and as much as I knew that I'd have put on weight, it was still a rather unpleasant surprise to see the numbers on the scale reach that high. I need to do something about it, to stop talking about it and actually do it. 15 minutes a day or something. Maybe rather than giving up something for lent, I should take something up. I had wondered about giving up animal products and going plant based.  Although, being an atheist I don't really know why I should do anything for lent really.

In other news, I signed up to eharmony. So far I'm not too impressed, but that's because I hate online dating and have unrealistic expectations. We'll see what happens. I've yet to decide if the best method is to politely respond to everyone that approaches me, or to only respond to those I'm interested in knowing more about. On the one hand the latter seems somewhat heartless, but the former runs the risk of leading people on, and I can't help but think that's worse.

What else can I update you on? I paid for Viki too. I couldn't stand having to wait for the last couple of episodes of I'm Not A Robot, plus it's actually so much nicer not having adverts every 9 minutes. On a good day that would be an extra 2 minutes to an episodes run time, but it could also add as much as 7 minutes, and that's if you don't want to go back more than a few seconds, because rewinding triggers more adverts too, so you actually could be watching 10 minutes of adverts in one single episode. Which probably wouldn't be so bad if they weren't all the same advert. It was just wasting time. If I watch two dramas a month at 16 episodes each, with an average of 5 minutes of adverts per episode, that's 160 minutes spent watching adverts a month. Membership is £3.34 a month, so that's 2p per minute, which is £1.20 an hour. That's not even minimum wage, so I'd actually be saving money if I joined up. I've spent a lot of time justifying this in my head, you may be able to tell. My point is it's worth every penny.

Mediheal Tea Tree Healing Masks

I full on love these sheet masks. 

I only have one left, and even though I already have a fair few of the Tony Moly I'm Real ones left, as well as a box of the orange mediheal masks in my cupboard, I'm very tempted to repurchase sooner rather than later. 

I have been using these masks twice a week for 4 weeks. Before, I was suffering from hormonal cystic acne along my jaw line, which was very uncomfortable and really affecting my confidence. I was wearing multiple foundations to try and cover it, but because they were so deep under my skin, attempting to cover it up didn't seem to work. I know I was maybe too sensitive, and that others probably didn't think twice to look at me, but it was painful so I could never forget that it was there. I knew that tea tree was supposed to be good for acne, and had liked the Tony Moly one. I'd heard a lot of good things about Mediheal, so when I found these masks on amazon, I thought I'd give them a try. 

The packaging says:

Components that help problem skin with much oil secretion such as Melaleuca Alternifolia (tea tree) leaf oil, Pinus Palustris Leaf extract and Portulaca Oleracea extract will soothe your irritated skin and let you feel refreshed without any stickiness after using it. Use of the cellulose mask sheet with silky touch fitting even your fine wrinkles aids intensive care and delivers the efficacy of the high-concentrated essence more mildly. 

I'm not really sure what they are getting at with half of that, but I can attest to it soothing my irritated skin and not being sticky at least. 

I used this at night after a shower. I would double cleanse with Simple Cleansing Oil and Garnier Natural Aloe Gel Face Wash and exfoliate with the Neogen Bio Peel Wine Gauze Pads in the shower. After toning with the Face Shop Rice Ceramide Toner, I would then apply the sheet mask, keeping it on for around 20 mins, or until it had started to dry out a little. I'd then tap in the essence, pretending to know what I'm doing, but really just copying what the beauty gurus do, and follow up with the Nature Republic Snail essence, Simple Eye Cream and Olay Regenerist Night Cream. 

The masks are nicely saturated with the serum, and I always found there to be a fair amount of excess left in the packaging. I'd use this an an extra essence step in my day to day routine, morning and night, concentrating it on my jawline, and it would normally last me until my next mask. The masks themselves fit really nicely, and are by far the best fitting sheet masks of the ones I've tried. They don't crease, the eye holes are in the right place, nor do they slide off your face. They aren't as thick as the Tony Moly ones, and don't have the annoying paper of the My Beauty Diary masks. 

Straight away, I noticed my skin feeling plumper and more hydrated. Fair enough, that's what sheet masks are supposed to do, and I'd never used them more than once a week before. However, what's really surprised me is how much better my hormonal acne has been since I started using these masks. Now don't get excited, my skin is still far from perfect, but it is significantly less painful, and the frequency and amount of break outs has definitely decreased. I think my skin issues are hyper pigmentation from previous blemishes now for the most part. Sure, I still break out, but it just doesn't seem as bad as before, not as cystic. My skin itself also feels and looks much better too. 

I don't know how much I can chalk this solely down to these masks. I've been drinking at least two litres of red bush tea a day, which might have helped the general hydration of my skin. I've also been using the Neogen pads for around the same amount of time, and the Nature Republic essence for a month or so longer, both of which are supposed to be good for acne prone skin. However, I still really highly rate these masks - I've genuinely loved bringing them into my routine and will definitely repurchase. 

You can find them easily on amazon for around £15 for a box of 10, and both these green ones and the orange ones came really quickly. Normally Korean cosmetics can take months because they are shipped from Korea, so just be aware and look for a  U.K. based seller.  

Mediheal do a whole host of options, but I'll see how I get on with the Vitamin C ones before I decide to venture into the others - I've clocked collagen and placenta, and the blue ones with the random letters. I've also heard good things about Leaders, and am tempted to try the Nature Republic ones seeing as I've liked their essence so much. 

We'll see, I can't really afford to fill my house with Korean skincare ... as much as I would love to ....