beauty habits i've changed since moving back to taiwan.
14.2.16
It's the day where everything is decked out in pink and red as love is being commercialised. I was going to post something festive for this day, but I started half a dozen drafts, none getting past the second sentence. I threw in my towel. I'm just not feeling it. While I've always liked the story of St. Valentine, I just never quite got on board with the holiday that developed since. Instead, I thought I'd do something completely unrelated. Things change when you move halfway across the world, a lot of my beauty habits have also changed. It's something that naturally happens when it's a completely different culture and climate.
I'm putting more care into my skincare...'regime'(?) While I still don't have a 10-step skincare routine, I've developed a regime that involves more steps than simple cleansing and moisturising. I'm involving more serums and sheet masks into my routine, and I'm actually sticking to the routine every evening. I'm still lazy during the morning, that's something I need to work on.
I switched to an oil-based cleanser. I hated using any sort of oil makeup remover in the past. Even if it was just limited to the eye area. But I've been pumping oil into my palms and massaging it in my skin to remove all bits of makeup the past month and I'm really loving it. It takes more time than a wipe of micellar water, but my skin does feel cleaner and almost plumper after using the oil. I also follow up with a regular cleanser afterwards to make sure all the oil is properly washed off, but I can see myself experimenting with more oil cleansers in the future.
I'm starting to be more aware of actually applying sunscreen. I always knew that sun protection was one of the most important aspects to maintaining good skin. But I'm ashamed to say that I've mostly relied on the SPF included in my base products most days, only whacking out my sunscreen when the sun is blazing and the temperature calls for tank tops and shorts. However, it seems that everyone and their dog has a tube or two of sunscreen in their bag here on this island country, and it's definitely encouraged me to keep a bottle of sunscreen (that I'm getting in the habit of using) with my morning skincare items.
I'm more prone to save the 'red lip' for special statements rather than an everyday thing. This is probably one of my saddest changes. I used to love wearing a bold opaque red lipstick on an everyday basis back in London. I've still worn red lipstick on a casual day here in Taiwan, but definitely less frequently. I miss it and I think I need to whack out the red a bit more. I actually whipped out the red for our Chinese New Year Eve dinner - cuz it was a holiday and red symbolises good luck and fortune in traditional Asian sense. THAT CHINESE NEW YEAR RED VIBE YO. I stuck to lip balm the rest of the week cuz too busy sinning with gluttony.
Same goes for a darker lipstick. This is mainly due to the weather. It just seems slightly out of place to wear a deep burgundy or plum lip when it's still 17 degrees outside.
I realise most of these rotate around skincare. Most of this has to do with the Korean influences that I have much more contact with these days and if you've seen any sort of Korean drama/video/person, IT'S LIKE ALL OF THEM HAVE PERFECT SKIN??? That's my new goal. No need for a base product perfect skin.
OH RIGHT - so I've been thinking of doing more 'let's talk' series on the blog. I have a few ideas in mind but I thought it would be nice if you guys gave me topics or questions I could do a post around. So basically, throw me your ideas and questions that you'd want me to discuss.
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