Life Updates: Frugal skin care, here I come!

Days ago, I've decided to commit to cut my spending on skin care products due to financial reasons. Following the mishap with one of the moisturizers I was using, I took the step of finally buying a drugstore product. No breakouts so far and that is why I am much more determined to push the use of cheaper products.

Pre-empting from something like this from ever happening.
Image from The Telegraph

I'd like to point out, though, that I may be cutting back on expenses by slowly replacing my Korean/Japanese skin care arsenal with low-end wares, but I am already expecting some Hanggul and Kana to stick around. Not all products are created equally, after all.

It's quite hard to find good sunscreen from the drugstores. The ones usually sold here are waaay sticky and unworkable, and are usually good for the body only. Watsons used to have Mentholatum sunscreen but I've talked to a sales assistant and she confirmed that their branch is no longer ordering from this dependable Japanese brand. Yeah, so I'm still going to purchase from Korean / Japanese lines.

I've yet to see oil cleansers as well, which is my cleanser of choice. Most of the cleansing products I see are foaming type soap cleansers which may not be so effective on waterproof sunscreen (sunscreen is best removed by oil-based cleansers / oils / makeup removers). Due to lack of cheaper cleansing oils in the market, I will still stick to Asian products for this category.

As for the Vitamin C serum, I cannot find ascorbic acid crystals anywhere (and I don't have the time to make a DIY serum), so I will continue to purchase Vitamin C serums from malls / skin care stores.

Thrifty but not crazy. Lemon scrubbing is still a skin care no-no.
Image by André Karwath

However, the toners and other types of serums (used to fall for pore minimizing stuff) can go. While some toners have some benefit, such as the one I currently use, I am still skeptical of its "essential" role in skin care - especially with its purported role of "balancing the pH" (how do I test this?) and "enhancing of product absorption" (again, how do I test this?). Paula Begoun recommends the use of well formulated toners, but the cheap ones on the market, unfortunately, are not that well formulated and usually contain alcohol. I'd rather invest in a good, slightly expensive moisturizer over toners.

I'm already venturing on cheap moisturizers and still looking for gentle AHA exfoliants. So throughout the development of this blog, there will be more of cheap product reviews (which unfortunately, no one reads about as most hits I get are from Korean skin care stuff) and less Japanese and Korean skin care products. Unless of course they start to sell cheap items.

Hey, maybe YOU can help and recommend some cheap moisturizers and exfoliants you've used? I'd appreciate the comments!