Case-in-point: When you go to a Korean restaurant, you’ll notice that many of the dishes they offer involve grilling the food right in front of you. Stews often come out with only the soup base prepped and then all the veggies, meats and spices will get thrown in after it starts boiling. Sure, this is not part of a “fine dining” experience. It involves a little patience and even effort on your part as you help stir and adjust the heat of the flames. But when it’s ready to be consumed it’s so mouth-watering delicious, you wouldn’t want it any other way. Luckily, most Korean restaurants have someone on hand to help with this process, as Conan cleverly pointed out during his trip to Seoul.
Conan takes a selfie while a Korean waitress cuts up his Korean BBQ with scissors over the grill. Oh, Conan, how I adore you!
How does Korean food relate to Korean beauty? I assure you, they totally relate and I have a point to all this. What I’ve been seeing trending in Seoul is that the “freshness” of the products are now essential to the effectiveness of the ingredient. If you haven’t noticed, the addition real or fresh ingredients have been a focal point to my curations recently.
LEMON GREEN CAVIAR ESSENCE + TOX TIGHTENING KIT
Licorice, lemon and niacinamide extracts brighten dull skin
while reducing fine lines and pigmentation.
The Neogen Essence and Tox Tightening Pack (available in both lemon and gold) is a perfect example of a “fresh” skin care product.
Here’s what I mean: the product arrives in a kit. The bottle containing fresh exfoliating and brightening extracts is packaged separately from the exfoliating pads. When you’re ready to use, you pour the ingredients into a stack of exfoliating pads so you know that you’ll have the freshest skin benefitting ingredients available to you. Then you use the tweezers to pull out each pad to make sure you keep everything sanitary.
WHY THIS MATTERS
Anything presoaked can quickly become oversaturated, fragile with time. On top of that ingredients can become less effective through oxidation. These kits were designed with the intention to reduce and minimize the oxidation process by providing fresh essence that you pour into the pads. Now that you can control when the pads are freshly soaked, you can deliver the most effective and fresh active ingredients to your skin!
MULTI-TASKING PRODUCT
The multi-tasking benefits of exfoliating and essence in one is also a standalone innovation in my eyes.
Exfoliating is key to staying acne-free and for bright, clear skin because it removes dead skin cells that end up clogging pores and clears the way for better absorption of the following treatment product. But there are so many times we fail to implement this step. Some people call it laziness—I call it life.
Essence is the essential step to helping your skin turn bright and glowy, i.e. fade acne scars and pigmentation by accelerating cellular turnover.
Now combined, you have two essential skin care steps ready for you in one powerful product. Thanks to the essence infused in the exfoliating pads you’ll be able to sweep away impurities, pat in the essence and after all that you don’t even have to rinse! Lock in the moisture with an emulsion or cream and you’re done!
GOLD BLACK CAVIAR ESSENCE + TOX TIGHTENING PACK
Gold flakes, collagen extracts and niacinamide adds hydration, plumps up skin to reduce fine lines and wrinkles.
You guys have already tried and raved about the Neogen Bio Peel Gauze Peeling Wine. The same exfoliating pad technology is used here. It’s a game-changer now that they created a exfoliating and essence option.
I’ve blabbed on long enough. Watch the video and see for yourself why this is the new way to essence.
—Charlotte Cho