Korean Vanity

Or, the post wherein I outline how much time I waste for vanity's sake.

Koreans are, generally, very concerned with appearance, especially the ladies. Most women that I see have on make-up, have styled their hair, and are wearing outfits, rather than just clothes.

I am probably one of the least put-together women in my office, as I don't wear much jewelry (I really only wear earrings, and only when I remember to put them on), I don't switch out my purse very frequently (there's a girl in my office that has a different purse every single day, depending on what her outfit is), I don't blow out my hair, and I don't wear colored makeup. By "colored makeup," I mean eyeshadow or lipstick. On a daily basis, I have on base makeup (so my skin looks nice), eyeliner, and eyebrow pencil. I sometimes remember to put on blusher. I never wear lipstick, and I only put on eyeshadow twice or three times a year (you know, for all those times I go clubbing).

In LA, I was considered rather preppy and conservative, as far as my appearance goes. I wear heels and sandals, and my outfits are general some sort of sweater and either jeans or trousers. I don't wear t-shirts to work. I sometimes wear blouses, and every once in a blue moon, I'll wear sweats (yoga pants) with a hoodie (generally if I have to work on weekends). While my daily wardrobe was a little formal for the LA workplace, it's pretty much casual here in the Korean workplace.

There are women in my office that wear prom dresses to work. One girl had on a bridesmaid's dress one day, I swear. It was peach organza with fluffy sleeves and a full cocktail-length skirt. Who looks at that kind of dress in a store and thinks that she'll wear it to work?? Not me, that's for sure.

Most of the women at work wear makeup, have their nails done, and have some sort of processed hair (perms and dyes). They wear jewelry, carry girly bags, and will sacrifice comfort in order to wear tottering heels. Most women also have great skin, something I envy.

As I've watched TV, talked to co-workers, and just soaked in the vibe here, I've realized that good skin is earned. I always thought it was genetics, and while my mother has nice skin, I just figured that I was never going to have clear, even skin. I have sensitive combination skin, which is annoying to deal with, and I get a blemish here and there every couple weeks. Not only do I get those blemishes, but I have rather long-lasting scars, even when I don't pick at my spots. I always just resigned myself to cleansing very thoroughly, exfoliating every few days, and applying concealer when necessary. What else can one do, when one is fast approaching 30 with no sign of improvement in one's skin?

Turns out, one spends money. Korean women use time and money to get their skin to be better than it really is, and I was rather taken aback by the sheer amount of products and propaganda that bombards me from all angles.

Advertising is pervasive, especially in such a wired country, to the point that I have a hard time remembering that when I was back home, I wasn't too perturbed about my skin's condition. Here in Korea, there are commercials, billboards, and constant reminders that YOUR SKIN IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH. A couple examples:

Lim Su-Jeong (임수정), an actress and spokeswoman for SK-II (that's SK2 with Roman numerals), one of the pricier skincare lines. It's made in Japan, and Cate Blanchett is the international spokeswoman. (Cate Blanchett has ridiculously beautiful skin.) It's available for purchase in the U.S. at Bloomingdale's, here.

Song Hye-Gyo (송혜교) is also an actress and the spokeswoman for Laneige, a Korean skincare brand (under the Amore-Pacific umbrella, which contains a ton of cosmetic brands).

Korean ads focus on pale, luminous skin, and try to make it appear that their spokespeople aren't wearing any make-up at all. This somehow really gets to me (I must be part of the target audience) and makes me crave that kind of clear, glowing complexion.

I don't know if it's subliminal or just really clever marketing, but I've been all about skincare lately. I started off quite well, with good (cheap) intentions, at road shops (lower end cosmetic brands that have stand-alone shops all over the place) like the Face Shop, Skinfood, Innisfree, Missha, and TonyMoly. I still go to road shops to stock up on face masks and foam cleansers, and one of Innisfree's scrubs has completely won me over (the Jeju Volcanic Pore Scrub Foam, which is awesome and has replaced my St. Ives Apricot Scrub, which has been my exfoliating scrub for years and years).

However, I realized that I needed a new moisturizer, because my Shiseido Brightening Moisturizing Gel was almost out. Besides which, my sensitive skin forces me to switch moisturizers when the weather changes- the gel works really well in the summer, but isn't moisturizing enough when it gets cooler. So I moseyed over to Lotte Department Store, intending to buy the Protective Cream, which is part of the same line as the Moisturizing Gel ... and I got sucked into the wonder of cosmetic counters in Korea.

There are a LOT of brands. They promise to do a lot of things. I browsed, I wandered, I tried different things (the backs of my hands have never been so moisturized before) and then I fell into the steep trap of SK-II.

I've seen commercials and advertisements for this brand, which I had heard about years ago. It was always way, way too expensive for me to even consider purchasing, but my newfound obsession with skincare and a little bit more disposable income meant that I was shelling out quite a lot of money for some moisturizer. (Don't ask how much, I still treat the thing like it's made of pure gold.)

Since I still had toner (also called "skin" in Korea), I just bought the moisturizer and fled before I could spend any more money. Before I ran off, though, the salesgirl gave me samples of SK-II's toner and essence. The essence is quite famous, reputed to be "miracle water," with something called pitera, which apparently decreases wrinkles and increases elasticity.

The essence, while famous, smells odd. Not really bad, but it's weird. The toner's fine, whatever- it's a little more moisturizing than other toners, but it doesn't seem to be anything spectacular. The essence, though, while it might smell weird, really does seem to have an effect. It's runny, just a little bit more viscous than water, and then feels sort of sticky in a couple seconds, once it's on the skin. It absorbs really well and then helps with the moisturizer, which seems to kind of bind to the essence.

I've been using the samples of the toner, essence, and moisturizer (the girl gave me two samples of the same moisturizer that I bought, telling me to use the samples to test the product) for about a week, and my skin is much happier. The samples I got are larger than most samples, they're really more like travel-sized bottles, rather than those tiny sample bottles that are normally distributed. I'll probably be able to use the samples for at least another two weeks, if not longer.

Back in the States, I used to use Qiora (a sister brand to Shiseido) off-and-on, mostly because I saw a difference in my skin, but it wasn't radical enough for me to justify the price on a regular basis. So I would buy the stuff when my skin got out of control (dry and flaking on my cheeks, oily and angry in my T-zone), use it until I ran out, and then let my skin go off on its own. I would use Qiora, Clinique, Elizabeth Arden (which always made me feel like an old lady), Lancome (eye cream), Shiseido, Clean & Clear (I don't discriminate by price), and all kinds of other brands, swapping out products dependent on my mood and my skin's condition.

For the past month, I've been using masks quite regularly and cleansing my face as thoroughly as possible. Adding SK-II to the mix seems to have really made my skin relax and brighten up.

I don't have perfect skin, not at all, but I'm hoping that it continues to get better. I'm also questioning why I care so much (curses to your emphasis on complexion, Korea!); when in Rome....

My new favorite mask, which I just discovered yesterday, is from Innisfree. (I think it's my favorite road shop, their products seem to be the nicest.) It's some sort of brightening wrinkle-reducing formula, but the awesome thing is that the mask covers the entire face and wraps around the neck! It feels a little suffocating at first, and it's rather annoying to unfold and apply, but it's fine once it's on and I like that it includes the neck. It also fit really well- I don't like those masks with really small eye-holes or really big mouth-holes, because I'm picky that way. If I'm going to put on a mask for 15 - 20 minutes, it better cover all the skin on my face.

It's already Thursday, and thank goodness. I'm ready for my weekend escape to Daegu, where I will wreak havoc on my skin by eating unhealthy food and probably drinking. I doubt that I'll be leaving work anytime soon (it's just past 9:00 now), but I'm definitely leaving on time tomorrow, so I can catch my train.

Hooray for short weeks (even if they have long days)!

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Bits and Bobs

Random photos from the long weekend (though I really only got Sunday and Monday off, as I came into work on Saturday and Tuesday):

Army dudes on the subway. Yup, the one on the right is sleeping. I see guys in uniform pretty much daily, as all Korean men have a two-year mandatory army stint, and they seem to get a couple days off here and there. Usually, I always see them carrying things that look like gifts- for the girlfriend or parents, I assume.

The sign stuck to the window made me laugh a little bit. It says 약한방차: 약한 냉방을 원하는 고객일 위한 차량입나다, which means that this particular car is a less-air-conditioned car than the typical (freezing) subway car. It was warmer, I admit, probably at least 10 degrees Fahrenheit.

My first Korean manicure. All these pictures were taken with my iPhone, which is overly saturating all the colors. The color at the tips of my nails is less neon, more of a peachy coral. Very pretty color. I quite like the manicure, except the woman filed my nails crooked, which just tortures me. I will end up taking a nail file to all my nails, but I'm resisting the temptation for now (filing the ends of manicured nails tends to encourage chipping, I've found).

It's almost midnight and I'm at work. Hopefully, it's only crazy busy until tomorrow, and then quiet from Friday. Besides which, I've already purchased a train ticket for Friday night, so I'm leaving no matter what!

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Happy 추석!

Today (Monday, September 12) is 추석 (Chuseok), or Korean Thanksgiving. As I've mentioned before, I've never spent a major Korean holiday in Korea. I'm not used to having lots of family around, people to make plans with. Getting my American family together for holidays is really easy, because there's just four of us. With my Korean family, it's a little more complicated.

Because my grandfather is currently in Seoul at his second son's (third child's) house, the kids in the family that live in Seoul (or, in my case, Seoul-adjacent) were expected to trek over for the holiday. This uncle is my mother's younger brother and has four daughters, all younger than me. The cousins who live in Seoul are my mother's older brother's kids, two sons, one older and one younger than me. The three of us were to all meet at my uncle's house, but my older cousin said he would meet me at the subway station, since I don't know how to get to my uncle's house.

Convoluted and totally confusing, yes? Turns out, having lots of family means there is more chaos. And it also turns out that traveling via public transit during a national holiday is awful. It doesn't help that I may have taken the longest way possible to get to Seoul (thanks a lot, Jihachul app, thanks) and what should have taken less than an hour took almost two and a half hours.

The first transfer on the subway was pretty easy. The photo above was taken at 대곡 (Daegok) Station, where the app told me to transfer. So I did, because this app has guided me to and from Seoul for the past two months.

I waited at this particular station (in a very rural area) for probably about half an hour, because I didn't realize that my transfer was onto a county line. I mean, really, it's very hard to tell the difference.

So the app told me that I would just make the one transfer and proceed right along to Seoul Station, which is where I was to meet my cousin. Easy. Sure, I had to wait half an hour at Daegok, but if that's the only transfer I'm taking, I can deal. Yeah, not so much.

The train stopped at Digital Media City Station and then we all got kicked out. I looked around and noticed that transferring to the next platform would lead to Seoul Station. Seemed rather straightforward and normal, so I waited for the subway.

I waited ... and waited ... and took pictures ... and texted people ... and waited some more. I think three trains, honest-to-goodness passenger trains, not subway trains, whizzed past in the first twenty minutes. All I did was impatiently pace around that platform, carrying a purse and an awfully heavy camera, listening to Adele and cursing the subway system.

It wasn't until I'd been at the station for well over half an hour that the subway train finally showed up. I dashed in, took a seat, and began realizing that transportation on Chuseok is no joke- people weren't kidding when they said traveling during holidays in Korea is crappy at best.

I'll admit that I did like this station because I like trains, and regular underground stations aren't nearly as interesting to photograph as this type of outdoor station. Proof of Korea's industrialization in the background, with the new tall and shiny building on the left and the new building on the right, still being built.

Finally got to Seoul Station, where there were thousands of people milling around, making me feel suffocated as they crammed together and got all up in each other's personal space. Ugh. I didn't take any pictures at Seoul Station because my cousin and I were calling and texting each other, trying to figure out where the other was and not succeeding.

We finally found each other and walked to the bus stop, where we got on the bus and exited one stop late. Because we were so late and we're both impatient, we trekked to the previous stop, rather than waiting for the bus going in the opposite direction.

The photo above was taken at the first bus stop. The taller tower is Namsan Tower (남산 타워), which I had tons of photos of from last year (can't believe that I haven't posted those pictures yet). I do distinctly remember that Namsan (literally "South Mountain") is very close to my uncle's house, so I knew we were somewhere in the vicinity.

My cousin and I were in a neighborhood mart (a small little store in a small little street that's lined with stores selling different things- groceries, fruit, vegetables, fish, etc.) buying a box of giant Asian pears (a traditional gift during Chuseok) when we saw our aunt and uncle walk down the street. What amazing timing- and thank goodness we didn't have to hike up the rather steep hill and try to find their house without assistance.

My grandfather, aunt, uncle, their four daughters, my two cousins, two congregants of my uncle's church (he's a pastor), and I had Chuseok lunch (so much food), tons of fruit (peaches, apples, and pears), espresso, traditional Korean pastries, walnuts and pine nuts, and then a little more espresso. We all lolled about in a food-induced stupor for a couple hours afterward, talking about insignificant things, teasing each other, and acting very much like a family.

My uncle took a nap in the tent he has outside, which is his little outdoor retreat (he had a movie playing out there while he dozed). Our grandfather nagged his grandkids a little- mostly the two boys. The youngest, a sixth grader, skipped around the room while we watched her. It was so much like a normal family, like my family, but with different people.

That's the cousin that met me at Seoul Station. He worries about me, probably because he's the only cousin I have that's older than me, and because he's older, he feels a little responsible. He is probably the cousin that I am closest to, because I've seen him more than any other cousin. We're not that close, but we're not strangers- most of my cousins are strangers to me, even though we share DNA. Hopefully, being in Korea will help me to feel like my family is really my family. (And that's my uncle's tent in the back- he was in there when I took this picture.)

My grandfather with three of his grandchildren. The two girls are the youngest and second oldest of my uncle's daughters. The baby was probably bored all day because she's the youngest by almost ten years, so we're not very much fun for her to hang out with. The dude is my older cousin's little brother, he's the same age as my sister.

I didn't take the county line on my way home, so it only took about an hour to get back. Never taking that county line again. I shake my fist at you, Gyeongui Line (경의선)!

The transit hiccups had me all tired out before I even got to my uncle's house; it's only just past midnight now and I am wiped out. Tomorrow's technically part of the holiday, but I think I have to go into work for a couple hours and get some stuff done. Poop.

I'm hoping to find Jeongbal Mountain tomorrow, but I may settle for Lake Park, since it's close and easy. I may not have the energy for an uphill hike by the time I'm done with work.

Hooray for short work weeks, at least! And hooray for spending holidays with family!

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