An Experiment + Mini-Review: Basic Routine for a Guy

Since it’s a snow day in NYC, I can finally crank out a long over due post!

About 2 weeks ago, my brother asked me for help. Skincare help. He knows how much time, effort, and money I’ve put into my skincare routine and into trying new products. And he also knows how many samples I’ve acquired over the months. So I was happy to oblige! Especially since it meant he could use some products I haven’t gotten around to because my skin was dealing with some flare-ups as well.. I’ve had to cut back on trying new products and went to the “basics” just to calm my skin a bit.

So I went through my stash and figured out some products that would tackle my brother’s skincare concerns, that would work with my brother’s face AND his willingness to put products on his face.

Mini-Reviews// Moisturizer samples galore

As I may have previously mentioned in other posts, or just my Instagram, but I’ve been on a no-buy that I’ve been very shocked I’ve actually adhered to. I haven’t bought anything new since my Black Friday haul as an attempt to go through my samples stash. Also because I subscribe to the 3B Box, I get one or two full size samples so I always end up going one step forward, two steps back when trying to go through everything.

I’ve also been cutting things out of my routine, mainly my actives. I’ve been noticing my skin barrier is still pretty weak with some blemishes so I’m trying to be a bit more strategic with my use. So instead of a full barrage of Vitamin C, BHA and AHA, I alternate depending on what my skin looks like it would benefit with. This also slowed down my testing samples process a bit, but my skin is recovering slowly.

Regardless, I’ve been overdue with a KBeauty/ABeauty review so I’ll be quickly going down the line of the tiny samples I got with purchases. I didn’t get around to taking a picture of them but pics will come at a later date, but for the sake of my blog, I’ll do a quick write-up on them 🙂

Reviews // CosRX Snail Essence and Mela14 Ampoule (the dynamic duo for breakouts)

I have a bad habit when I breakout: as soon as I see a head form, I will pop or scratch it. Deep or shallow, it will be a victim to my antsy fingers. As I see it, the quicker it scars, the quicker it’ll fully heal.

Of course, that also means my face has fallen prey to post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation (PIH)- dark brown spots from old acne. They would stay on my face for months. My face was far from flawless but I didn’t mind them because it beats having a huge painful raised pimple on my skin.

I visited oo35mm in Chinatown when looking for a toner to replace my Origins one that was running low. I was given a CosRX Advanced Snail 96 Mucin Power Essence sample and was excited! From all my Reddit + blog trolling, anything snail was like the proper introduction to Korean beauty. I was a bit creeped out but after reading all the wonderful reviews, I figured it couldn’t hurt to try. It was a sample after all.

I had a newly formed red zit and thought with all of snail’s wonderful properties, it should do something to it.

Which it did. The next day, my zit wasn’t as red anymore. I stared at the little packet with disbelief. No effing way. Was this the wonder of snail? I needed to know more so I bought a bottle off of Amazon.