I’m Katherine, the K-Beauty lover behind the blog SkinfullofSeoul.

I’m 27 years old, and I moved to Seoul, South Korea, in 2014. I stayed there for almost four years, living, working, and yes, slowly becoming a fully fledged skincare aficionado.

Over the past few years I’ve learned unbelievable amounts, both in my basic skincare and science knowledge, as well as my industry understanding and experience. I was offered some fabulous opportunities through out my time in Seoul, and I’m continuing to share the passion I have for K-Beauty here in the UK. For more details on what I do, see my Media Kit, Content Creation, & Consultancy page.

For those of you more interested in my personal skincare journey here’s the deets:

I have normal/combination skin, although as I get older my skin seems to be moving more the dry side, and it’s currently the most dry it’s ever been. I also get easily dehydrated skin (hydrating toners are my life savers). Being quite the pale lady, I get a lot of redness related to heat and post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation. Whilst I’m not acne-prone anymore, I do get congested skin with small red pimples that never seem to come to anything, only appearing now and then. I also have an abundance of sebaceous filaments on my nose, and occasionally some rough texture. Despite that list, these are all quite minor “issues”, and I’m happy with my complexion after years of work on it.

My skincare aims are loosely:

• • Reduce redness and PIH- evening skin tone and general brightening

• • Anti-aging (who doesn’t want this? It’s never too early, and by anti-aging I generally mean preventative work)

• Texture smoothening

So why K-Beauty?

First- K-Beauty is not necessarily better than Western skincare, and that’s a fact. BUT there are a number of reasons I love it and my skincare is predominantly influenced by and bought from Korea. The most obvious being I was in Korea when I truly became interested in skincare. Every few steps you take on any Seoul street, there is a Korean beauty store, gleaming at you enticingly. I loved spending my time exploring these stores, researching trends, and finding new products. It was all much more accessible at that time than western skincare was.

However it was more than just my location that got me hooked. Korean beauty makes it very easy to pick out individual products to target specific skincare needs. I can create a flexible routine, and have had a lot of success achieving clear, bright skin. This is the philosophy of Korean skincare- not how many steps you can fit in, but tailoring a routine to your needs and wants. My skin has truly transformed from pretty simple changes, and this leads my onto my next point…

Many fantastic K-Beauty products are affordable, whilst often maintaining superb quality (ahem, Cosrx, my fave brand, I’m looking at you). No one starting to delve into skincare wants to shell out $50 on a cream. K-Beauty, in my opinion, offers some truly life-changing products, and often for a much lower price than their western counterparts. Then take into account the importance of packaging, the “skincaretainment” factor, the interesting and often different marketing techniques, the constant flow of new products, and the insanely advanced R&D, and it’s not surprising that Korean beauty captured my heart.

Whilst I do mostly talk about Korean beauty, I do experiment with European and American products too, so keep an eye out for those.

Mission:

My mission for this blog is to share my beauty discoveries, purchases, likes and dislikes, my Seoul experiences, and hopefully create an interactive space to share thoughts with you guys on all of the above. I hope you enjoy SkinfullofSeoul!