Korean Two-Phase Make-up Remover Reviews

Korean Two-Phase Make-up Remover Reviews

Two-phase or biphasic removers are my favourite type of make-up remover. They’re the ones that look like they have a layer of oil floating on a layer of water (the two layers are often different colours so you can see them easily). You shake them up like salad dressing before putting them on a cotton pad and wiping off your make-up. They remove waterproof make-up easily, generally don’t sting your eyes and if you’re lucky, won’t leave a greasy residue either.

How do two-phase make-up removers work?

In chemistry, there’s a rule of thumb known as like dissolves like, meaning that substances that are alike in polarity will mix together. For example, sugar and water are both polar substances, so sugar dissolves easily in water. Oil is non-polar, so sugar doesn’t dissolve in it.

Two-phase removers contain a non-polar oily layer (usually consisting of lightweight silicones like cyclopentasiloxane or cyclomethicone) floating on a polar water-based layer. They don’t mix because of the difference in polarity. But when you shake the bottle before using it, it ensures that some of each layer makes it onto your cotton pad, which gives it the power to dissolve both polar and non-polar substances (i.e. pretty much all your makeup).

Make-up Remover Reviews

I recently ran out of my Face of Australia two-phase make-up remover (this stuff lasts me forever), so I decided to buy a bunch of Korean ones and try them out – they’re all under $5 on RoseRoseShop and available on Amazon (slightly pricier but faster shipping – still under $10 though!).

Korean Two-Phase Make-up Remover Reviews

Here are my reviews:

Missha Green Tea Eye and Makeup Remover

Missha’s remover has a colourless oily layer on top of a green water-based layer containing green tea extract. It also contains benzophenone-4, a sunscreen ingredient, for some mysterious reason (maybe a cosmetic chemist knows? Edit: “This UV-filter protects the colorants in the formula from fading out. Especially with transparent packaging you need to protect the colorants from UV light. Normally only a small amount is needed and this will not add any sun protection to the skin.” Thanks Roland!). It comes in a cute heart-shaped bottle, which makes the twist-top lid very easy to grip even when your hands are wet.

Links: RoseRoseShop, Amazon

Scent: Moderately strong floral “green tea” scent (the one that’s used in lots of green tea products, but doesn’t smell like any green tea)

Eye stinging: Very very slight stinging if you get a whole heap in your eye

Oily residue: Moderate. It’s barely noticeable after you rinse it with some water, but I wouldn’t want to skip rinsing afterwards.

Effectiveness: Gets everything off easily.

Ingredients: Water, Cyclopentasiloxane, Isohexadecane, Butylene Glycol, Sodium Chloride, Camellia Sinensis Leaf extract, Camellia Japonica Flower Extract, Viscum Album (Mistletoe) Fruit Extract, Portulaca Oleracea Extract, Caprylyl/Capryl Glucoside, Benzophenone-4, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Polydecene, Squalane, Disodium EDTA, Phenoxyethanol, Methylparaben, Fragrance (Parfum), Yellow 5 (CI 19140), Blue 1 (CI 42090).

Innisfree Apple Juicy Lip & Eye Remover

A lot of these Korean removers do have this rather disconcerting name – I can assure you that my lips and eyes are intact! This comes in a round bottle with a smooth twist top that’s a little difficult to open if your hands are wet.

Links: RoseRoseShop, Amazon

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My Picks from iHerb’s New Korean Beauty Selection

My Picks from iHerb's New Korean Beauty Selection

My Picks from iHerb's New Korean Beauty Selection

iHerb, every Aussie beauty lover’s favourite grocery-store-that-sells-Real-Techniques-for-cheap, now has a Korean Beauty (K-Beauty) section! The prices aren’t too bad compared to other K-Beauty outlets like RoseRoseShop, considering iHerb’s cheap and fast shipping.

The K-Beauty selection is currently quite small (45 items), but it does contain some much-loved classics. Here are my picks:

Banila Clean-It Zero – $17.95 USD (vs RoseRoseShop: $12.63)

This is a classic cleansing balm, which is like a cleansing oil but easier to handle (read more about how cleansing balms work here). Rub it on your face to dissolve greasy sunscreen or makeup, then rinse it off with water – the surfactants in the formula help the oil wash off without extra help! If necessary, you can follow up with another cleanser. Used by itself, it leaves your skin softer than a regular cleanser, thanks to the oil-rich formula. Banila Clean-It Zero contains mineral oil as the main oil, which works well for most people. iHerb also sells the Resveratrol and Radiance versions.

Mizon All In One Snail Repair Cream – $14.35 USD (vs RoseRoseShop: $17.99)

This has a whopping 92% snail secretion filtrate, which is amazing at hydrating your skin, and potentially could act as an antioxidant as well (more on snail secretion science here). This cream is lightweight and absorbs quickly, with some great skin-plumping effects. I’ve only tried a small sample of it so far, but once I finish my current snail slime products I’ll be getting this one!

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Korean Gray-Brown Brow Pencil Comparison

Asian-brow-pencils

I have undyed East Asian hair, so it’s hard to find a good brow product in stores in Australia. Luckily the Asian beauty market has it covered with tons of grey-brown options! I couldn’t find many comparison swatches online so I ended up buying a whole stack of “Gray Brown” pencils from a range of Korean brands (The Face Shop, Missha, A’pieu, Skinfood, Tonymoly, Lioele) from RoseRoseShop, and swatched them to show the difference. I hope this helps someone with the same dilemma!

Asian-brow-pencils

Here are the “Gray Brown” products I swatched:

A’pieu Nature Easy Eyebrow Pencil in Gray Brown
Tonymoly Lovely Eyebrow Pencil in Gray Brown
Skinfood Black Bean Eyebrow Pencil in Gray Brown
The Face Shop Lovely ME:EX Design My Eyebrow in Gray Brown
The Face Shop Lovely ME:EX Design My Eyebrow in Dark Gray
Lioele Auto Eyebrow in Gray Black
Missha The Style Perfect Eyebrow Styler in Gray Brown
A’pieu Harutatoo Brow in Dark Brown

Asian-brow-pencil-comparison-grey-brown

Since my hair is undyed, the roots of my hair and brows are naturally grey-tinged. Pretty much all of the affordable brown brow pencils designed for brunettes in Australia pull too red, while black pencils are too dark, so they both look pretty unnatural. There are a few OK products on the market, but they’re few and far between, so I’ve been using The Face Shop ME:EX Design My Eyebrow in Gray Brown as my everyday brow pencil, while my sister uses the same pencil in Dark Gray. The shades are very similar, though Gray Brown has a subtle brown tone.

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How to Exfoliate 1: All About Physical Exfoliants

exfoliation-tools

Are you confused about how to choose the right exfoliation method for your skincare routine? This three-part series rounds up all the types of exfoliants for your face, with examples of products and their pros and cons!

This post covers all the physical exfoliation options. Part 2 will be on chemical exfoliation, and Part 3 will be a guide on how to choose the one(s) that will work for you. For a more barebones overview, check out this exfoliation basics post.

What is exfoliation?

Your skin consists of living skin (the epidermis), covered in a 15-20 layers of dead cells (the stratum corneum). The dead cells in the stratum corneum have an important role in protecting your living tissue from the outside environment. They’re completely replaced around every 2 weeks – the cells at the surface are constantly shedding. However, the shedding isn’t always regular, and sometimes it happens slower than it should. This leads to your skin being covered by too thick a layer of dead cells, which looks dull, uneven, scaly and flaky. Exfoliation helps the shedding along, ideally without compromising the ability of the stratum corneum to act as a barrier.

There are 2 main categories of exfoliation: physical and chemical. I’m including exfoliation tools under the banner of physical exfoliation, and enzymes in the chemical group.

What Is Physical Exfoliation?

Dead cells are buffed away mechanically using grainy products or tools. It’s a lot like sandpapering a block of wood or scrubbing tiles – the friction from rubbing an object back and forth over the skin lifts stuck cells.

Much like sandpapering wood, the harshness of physical exfoliation depends on a few factors:

  • what the exfoliating objects are like (how large, how hard, how smooth)
  • how you move them over your skin (how hard you press, what direction you go in, how long you rub it in for)

I personally find that rubbing lightly in small circles for a minute or two is more effective and less irritating than rubbing hard for a short period, with any physical exfoliation method.

Physical exfoliation has a reputation for being harsh, but I think it’s unfair – it can be very gentle, but most people use physical exfoliants way too frequently, and feel like it’s not working if they don’t feel raw and tingly afterwards. Don’t fall into this trap! It’ll make your skin worse in the long run, reducing the ability of the stratum corneum to act as a barrier against the outside world and prevent moisture from leaving (its barrier function).

Product categories

Click on each heading to jump to that section.

Plastic microbeads

These round beads are made of plastic and come in every imaginable colour. They used to be in tons of products because they’re really cheap and smoothly shaped, so they were budget-friendly and gentle on the skin.

However, it turned out that microbeads were an environmental pollutant – they made their way through the sewage system and into waterways, where environmental toxins (actual toxins) like pesticides latched onto them. When aquatic animals ate them, they would release the toxins. Nasty! (You can read more on microbead pollution on this post.)

Plastic microbeads were banned in a handful of US states after research showed that the beads were turning up everywhere. The Netherlands are in the process of phasing them out. Other Western countries are moving in this direction, so plastic microbeads are found in less products these days.

You’ll see them listed on the ingredients list as:

  • polyethylene
  • polypropylene
  • nylon-6
  • nylon-11
  • polymethyl methacrylate

You can find lists of microbead-containing and microbead-free products in your country on Beat the Microbead.

How to use

These are the standard scrub products – squeeze some into your hand, slap it on your clean face and rub around, then rinse.

Examples

plastic-microbead

It’s actually been quite difficult to locate plastic microbeads in my skincare collection – I only managed to find an old tube of Nivea Pure Effect All-in-1 Multi Action Cleanser, and a couple of Asian products (Muji Scrub Face Soap and Missha Cacao & Cream Facial Scrub).

There are lots of replacements for plastic microbeads available now, so you can still get your scrub on without as much guilt.

Jojoba Beads

One of the most popular replacements for plastic microbeads are jojoba beads. They’re made of chemically processed jojoba oil (the same process used to make solid margarine from liquid vegetable oil), and are usually listed as “hydrogenated jojoba oil” or “jojoba esters” in the ingredients list. These beads are translucent white, and they’re usually found in products as very fine grains.

How to use

Just like microbeads, these are straightforward scrubs. Rub them onto clean damp skin, rinse away afterwards.

Examples

jojoba-scrubs

These are particularly popular in products marketed as natural – they show up in Jurlique, Moreish and Neutrogena Naturals scrubs, as well as a Guinot Gentle Face Exfoliating Cream, a scrub/peeling gel hybrid. They’re popular but I’m personally not that fond of how they feel on my skin, so I don’t reach for these that often.

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Foundation success!

Ever since I discovered the usefulness of trying out foundation on black paper, I’ve been obsessed with trying them all out! Here are 5 foundations I’ve recently swatched on black paper, and taken for week-long test drives: 1. Sally Hansen Natural Your Skin Makeup in Ecru Beige* – This is one of my favourite foundations I’ve tried. Fashion Addict sent …

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Project Pan Empties #21-30

More Project Pan empties! I’ve loosened up a bit with the No Buy, and it’s now a Low Buy, but I’ve kind of lost the urge to BUY ALL THE THINGS so it’s been a pretty successful venture in my opinion. 21. Lux Luminous Touch Body Wash – The “luminous” mica flakes aren’t really that noticeable, but I love the …

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Time to Declutter – Project Pan Empties 1-10

One of my goals for this year is to organise my life, and one of the big things is to declutter. With this in mind, I’ve recently embarked on a Project Pan in the interests of decluttering, reducing my environmental footprint and saving money (good ol’ student budget). For those of you not familiar with the concept, Project Pans are …

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Lab Muffin’s top beauty products of 2012

2012 is nearly over, so here’s a round-up of the beauty products that got the most use this year (nail polish excluded): Skinfood Pineapple Peeling Gel (reviewed here) – My go-to exfoliator when my skin feels like it needs a good scrub. It’s a mix of physical and chemical exfoliant, and it lives in my shower caddy pretty much permanently.PVA …

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