Trying Out ‘Skip-Care’, the New Korean Beauty Routine

kahyin toh
Korean Beauty Trends
8 min readOct 18, 2019

South Korea is known for its buzzing K-beauty scene, and as the world’s unofficial skincare guide, South Korean beauty and skincare trends have taken the world by storm, with thousands of devotees worldwide religiously following Korean skincare routines.

One trend in particular that stood out is the 10-step skincare routine. It is a hallmark of Korean beauty, and involves layering 10 products onto your skin, each performing a different and specific function to help you achieve that flawless, glass-skin look.

These are the 10 steps in the routine:
1. Oil cleanser
2. Foam/cream cleanser
3. Toner
4. Essence
5. Emulsion
6. Ampoule/Serum
7. Sheet Mask
8. Eye Cream
9. Moisturizer
10. Night cream (night)/ Sunscreen (day)

In summary, it's about layering the right products for your skin type to give you that glowy and supple skin.

However, in recent years, Koreans have abandoned their 10-step ritual, favouring a more minimalist approach. Skip-Care, the antithesis of the 10-step skincare routine, focuses on the products that are essential to your skin, and nothing more. This is also accompanied by an increased concern with ‘body burden’, which is the total amount of chemicals absorbed into the body. By reducing the number of skincare products you use, you can also reduce the amount of chemicals absorbed into your body.

Skip-Care is also more specific and tailored to one’s skin, using multi-tasking products that perform different functions at once, instead of 10 individual products where each serves one purpose. In fact, more people have also realised that they don’t need all 10 steps, and have become more interested in streamlining their skincare routines, engaging in a sort of ’beauty minimalism’, to filter out the essential items in their skincare routine. Using fewer products means fewer irritants and fillers, and also reduces the likelihood of ingredients clashing and reducing their efficacy or inactivating each other.

As an avid K-beauty fan, I naturally had to try out the new Skip-Care trend for myself! Currently, my skincare routine consists of about 8–9 steps: micellar water, face wash, toner, 2 different serums, an essence, 2 creams, and finally a sleeping mask or sheet mask if I feel like it. My skincare concerns are oily skin (from being dehydrated), acne, rough/ bumpy texture from the acne, large and clogged pores around the nose, chin, and forehead.

For this experiment, I also took the opportunity to purchase new skincare products (hehe), as some of my old ones were running out. Although purchasing more products might sound quite contradictory to the idea of skip-care/ beauty minimalism, my current skin has been conditioned to only feel moisturised if I do ALL 8 steps every day. Even then, my skin would get dehydrated throughout the day and produce oils to make up for the lack of moisture. Thus, for my new Skip-Care routine, I prioritised products that focused on delivering extra moisture to my skin, as well as reducing acne and the appearance of large clogged pores. I also retained some items from my routine in this Skip-Care routine, such as the cleanser and sleeping mask, because they simply do the job well.

Based on the reviews from popular K-beauty junkies and on my own self-research, I created the following skip-care routine for myself:

Products from left to right:

Cleanser: COSRX Good Morning Cleanser

Toner: SOMEBYMI Miracle Toner

Ampoule: DR CEURACLE Vita Propolis Ampoule

Serum: iUNIK Beta-Gluten Power Moisture Serum

Sleeping Mask: HUXLEY Goodnight Sleep Mask

If you’d like to know more about these products, you can find their descriptions and where to buy them here.

See also: Boyfriend Tries Skincare Routine

Skip-Care Beauty Diary

Time to finally start the experiment! Here’s how my skin looked before the routine:

Day 1

As you can see, I had many large pores around my nose and on my cheeks near to the nose. There’s also some shine on my skin from the oil produced throughout the day. There were also some red or dark spots around my cheeks from previous acne breakouts.

DAY 1: 3 OCT
My products arrived in the mail! Before I retired for the night, I washed my face with my usual COSRX Good Morning Cleanser and as per the Skip-Care routine, layered the rest of the products over.

With the absence of the 2 creams that I usually put for the last two steps of my skincare routine, my skin still felt a little drier than usual about an hour after I had finished the routine. I concluded that this could be due to my skin not yet being accustomed to the new Skip-care routine which had fewer and different products. Thus, I decided to put on a calming and moisturising sheet mask to help my skin ease into the new routine

The sheet mask I used was from Briskin, a Korean sheet mask brand known for its bio-cellulose mask. The mask I used was their calendula one, where little bits of calendula, known for its hydrating and soothing properties in skincare, were infused into the mask. How cool is that?

Using the Briskin sheet mask

DAY 2: 4 Oct
There was no visible difference the next day (which was expected) — my complexion did not look especially bright nor plump. I continued the routine in the morning as well, but throughout the day my face felt oilier than usual, and I wasn’t sure if it was the products that felt oily or if my face was just producing more oil.

DAY 4: 6 Oct
I find my skin getting used to the products; I didn’t need to put an extra moisturiser on top because my skin didn’t feel as dry as when I first started. I’m also glad there hasn’t been any purging* from the toner, something which I was afraid would happen to me because it happened previously with another product.

*purging refers to when your skin adjusts to a new product and purges out the impurities within. in the short-term (a week or so) there might be more bumps and pimples, but once they’re purged the skin will eventually be clearer than before.

DAY 7: 9 Oct
So at this point, I noticed my skin had several small bumps (pimples) emerging, especially at the forehead. If you look at the middle photo below, you can see some small bumps appearing in the center of my forehead. I suspect that this might be due to the toner. Also, a new baby pimple popped up on my right cheek. The redness around my nose and some parts of my cheek were still present.

Day 7

DAY 10: 12 Oct
The bumps on my skin slowly disappeared; I wasn’t entirely sure if they initially appeared due to my monthly hormonal changes or due to the toner. There was no extreme purging though, which I feel lucky about. I guess this meant my skin wasn’t that clogged after all. :)

DAY 12: 14 Oct
I noticed that my skin doesn’t feel as dry as it did in the first few days, but throughout the day it becomes oilier than it used to when I was still putting 10 products on my face. Someone in school comment that my nose was looking extremely shiny today. *proceeds to cry in a corner*

DAY 14: 16 Oct
This is the last day of this experiment and, honestly, I haven’t seen any mindblowing changes, unlike what I’ve read in many skip-care reviews.

From the photos, you can see that my blackheads are still very much there, and the pores around my nose are still very obvious. But as compared to before, my face does look a little less red and my skin tone looks a bit more even now.

The cons of this routine were that my skin got oilier throughout the day now, probably from the lack of moisture due to the switch from almost 10 products a day to just 5 now, contrary to the goal of hydrating my face.

Final thoughts and feelings

This marks the end of my 2-week Skip-Care routine, but I can’t say that my skin has changed much. Perhaps my selection of products could be improved, or maybe skincare just requires a longer time to have an obvious, visible effect. Nevertheless, skincare is all about trial and error, and coming up with the perfect skincare routine requires time for effects to show and effort to maintain a daily morning and night routine. What we can take away from this experience is the philosophy behind the Skip-Care routine — less is more, and that you don’t need all 10 products to have beautiful skin!

So, if you’re looking to jump in the skip-care bandwagon or simply wanting to try a new skincare routine, the most important thing is to look at the ingredients, and also consider what your skin really needs. Have dry skin? Swap out the ampoule for a thick moisturiser. Combination skin? Use products that are targeted to that skin type. Feel free to use two different serums, or alternatively, if your skin doesn’t need much, a simple face wash and moisturiser will do the trick. Ultimately, skincare is about delivering the most benefits, tailored to what your skin needs.

Even though Skip-Care didn’t really work out for me, I still discovered that maybe I don’t need every single product in my 10-step routine. This two-week journey has been enlightening, and I’d definitely try out more K-beauty trends in the future! Leave a comment on what you’d like me to try next. Thanks for reading!

Don’t forget to check out the detailed descriptions of the products I use and where to purchase them here!

See also: Boyfriend Tries Out Skincare Routine

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