A Glowing Korean Mindset
I am enamored with Koreans—every single man woman and child has incorporated skincare into their daily routines. Sounds like heaven on earth if you ask me! It is quite simply their way of life where quality family time is often spent at a Korean Day Spa. All generations of families go to the spas to soak and steam and get scrubbed and massaged. Don’t be surprised to see someone that’s eight or eighty! They dine, relax, and read—you name it—and it’s a grand experience. You can even stay the night!
As an aesthetician, it almost makes me do my happy dance when people are committed to their skin care routines. If my fellow Americans would only have the same mindset we would all have glowing, luminous skin.
What’s the mindset? Prevention and commitment. In Seoul, there is a place to buy skin care on nearly every street corner and they’re not filled with people of all ages: girls, boys, women and men.
The skin care industry is extremely competitive and Korean’s put out very progressive lines containing results-oriented ingredients (snail mucus! Oh, yay!). Because the market is fiercely competitive and brand loyalty is not paramount, companies strive to stay current with their gorgeous and kitschy packaging and they are constantly changing products (think limited edition).
Here in America, I get a disproportionate number of clients that walk in to my clinic for the first time in a panic, realizing that they are showing signs of aging, have an unwanted condition like hyperpigmentation (brown spots) and they want me to magically make it all disappear. We want instant and lasting results.
Well, like many of my clients, I too am from the “baby oil and Iodine” generation. For those of you who don’t know what that means, let me share. In the summers, especially here in California, my friends and I had one goal: to out-tan everyone else. That means that we would lay out without sunscreen for the entire day, day in and day out for months, working on our deep tans. Not only did we not wear sunscreen , we spread baby oil mixed with Iodine. Apparently, that was the golden ticket to tanning. The Korean’s must think were all insane! Luckily, I started wearing sun screen on regular basis when I turned thirty.
