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The Monodist by Odile Monod

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  • 🇬🇧 (🇮🇹 nei commenti) Can you tell which of these textures belong to a serum, which ones are essences and which ones are ampoules? I bet you can't. One of the (many) reasons why I'm so vocally against the myth of the "10 Step Korean Skincare Routine" is that it’s based on the premise that there's a standard for product nomenclature, when actually that is not the case. Companies decide to call a product "essence" / "serum" / "ampoule" etc according to how they would like customers to perceive the product. In other words: a name is just another advertising tool we advertisers use to make you interested in a product, just like a fancy packaging. Some websites will tell you that serums are usually more "concentrated" than essences, but that is a very ambiguous statement. Two different products might be labelled as "100% XYZ Plant Extract" but since you can't possibly know how much water goes into an extract, one product could be made of 98% water, while the other could be made of 80% water and still be labelled the same way. Likewise, a more viscous texture is not necessarily a sign of a "higher concentration". So what's the point of talking about "different concentrations"? Unlike what some foreign K-Beauty retailers claim, essences, serums and ampoules are considered equivalent products in Korea: liquid skincare treatments created to target a specific skin concern. This is why on the vast majority of beauty online shops in Korea, you will see these products in the same category (slide 3). Incidentally, this also means that you don't ~need~ to use all these products, just find a product with a formula and a texture you like and run with it! If you want to use multiple of these products, just remember to start from the one with the highest water content. A bonus trivia on this topic: did you know that @sulwhasoo.official 's iconic "First Care Activating Serum" is actually marketed as an essence in Korea? The brand decided to adopt the English name "Serum" because at the time the concept of "essence" was still new to the foreign audience. #rasianbeauty #kbeautyaddict #abcommunity #koreancosmetics #cosmeticacoreana #cosmeticicoreani #skincarecorea
    odilemonod
    odilemonod
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    🇬🇧 (🇮🇹 nei commenti) Can you tell which of these textures belong to a serum, which ones are essences and which ones are ampoules? I bet you can't. One of the (many) reasons why I'm so vocally against the myth of the "10 Step Korean Skincare Routine" is that it’s based on the premise that there's a standard for product nomenclature, when actually that is not the case. Companies decide to call a product "essence" / "serum" / "ampoule" etc according to how they would like customers to perceive the product. In other words: a name is just another advertising tool we advertisers use to make you interested in a product, just like a fancy packaging. Some websites will tell you that serums are usually more "concentrated" than essences, but that is a very ambiguous statement. Two different products might be labelled as "100% XYZ Plant Extract" but since you can't possibly know how much water goes into an extract, one product could be made of 98% water, while the other could be made of 80% water and still be labelled the same way. Likewise, a more viscous texture is not necessarily a sign of a "higher concentration". So what's the point of talking about "different concentrations"? Unlike what some foreign K-Beauty retailers claim, essences, serums and ampoules are considered equivalent products in Korea: liquid skincare treatments created to target a specific skin concern. This is why on the vast majority of beauty online shops in Korea, you will see these products in the same category (slide 3). Incidentally, this also means that you don't ~need~ to use all these products, just find a product with a formula and a texture you like and run with it! If you want to use multiple of these products, just remember to start from the one with the highest water content. A bonus trivia on this topic: did you know that @sulwhasoo.official 's iconic "First Care Activating Serum" is actually marketed as an essence in Korea? The brand decided to adopt the English name "Serum" because at the time the concept of "essence" was still new to the foreign audience. #rasianbeauty #kbeautyaddict #abcommunity #koreancosmetics #cosmeticacoreana #cosmeticicoreani #skincarecorea
    2 weeks ago
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    1/10
  • 🇬🇧 (🇮🇹 nei commenti) An interesting Korean beauty trend that was accelerated by the pandemic is 'home-aesthetic', the practice of enjoying professional beauty treatments at home (or trying, at least 😂) after social distancing lead many people to refrain from visiting aesthetic clinics on a regular basis. The trend involved skincare (with modelling masks and professional devices becoming a huge topic last year), makeup (with eyebrow lamination kits, eyelash extension kits and the likes), but it was especially noticeable in nail care, with the rising popularity of convenient (and amateur-friendly!) at-home gel manicure kits. Believe it or not I used to be really invested in nail art, but good old corona blues made me lose all motivation to take care of my nails. However, recently I gave the Speedy Gel kits by @wakemake_official a try to cheer myself up from a stressful period, and it felt really great to reconnect with my old passion. They're sets of nail stickers that harden like gel polish under a UV lamp. They come in boxes of 28 pieces (so you can use them at least twice, even more if you only replace some pieces), you just have to peel off the stickers, place them on your nail, cut them and let them sit under a UV lamp for 1 minute and that's it! The kit I'm wearing in this picture is "#12 Chic Marble Blue". #스피디젤네일 #올리브영 #웨이크메이크 #올리브영추천템 #젤네일추천 #젤네일스티커 #koreanbeautyproduct #koreanmakeup #cosmeticacoreana #skincarecoreana
    odilemonod
    odilemonod
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    🇬🇧 (🇮🇹 nei commenti) An interesting Korean beauty trend that was accelerated by the pandemic is 'home-aesthetic', the practice of enjoying professional beauty treatments at home (or trying, at least 😂) after social distancing lead many people to refrain from visiting aesthetic clinics on a regular basis. The trend involved skincare (with modelling masks and professional devices becoming a huge topic last year), makeup (with eyebrow lamination kits, eyelash extension kits and the likes), but it was especially noticeable in nail care, with the rising popularity of convenient (and amateur-friendly!) at-home gel manicure kits. Believe it or not I used to be really invested in nail art, but good old corona blues made me lose all motivation to take care of my nails. However, recently I gave the Speedy Gel kits by @wakemake_official a try to cheer myself up from a stressful period, and it felt really great to reconnect with my old passion. They're sets of nail stickers that harden like gel polish under a UV lamp. They come in boxes of 28 pieces (so you can use them at least twice, even more if you only replace some pieces), you just have to peel off the stickers, place them on your nail, cut them and let them sit under a UV lamp for 1 minute and that's it! The kit I'm wearing in this picture is "#12 Chic Marble Blue". #스피디젤네일 #올리브영 #웨이크메이크 #올리브영추천템 #젤네일추천 #젤네일스티커 #koreanbeautyproduct #koreanmakeup #cosmeticacoreana #skincarecoreana
    3 weeks ago
    View on Instagram |
    1/10
  • 🇬🇧 (🇮🇹 nei commenti) You probably heard of "probiotic skincare" and how it has recently taken #kbeauty by storm, but not many people know that probiotic skincare is more than just a temporary fad in Korea. South Korea is arguably the country that is currently investing the most in research involving the skin microbiome (a beneficial ecosystem of microorganisms inhabiting the skin) and the topical application of (inactivated) probiotics. A Korean cosmetic manufacturer called Cosmax (@cosmax_people) in particular, made the headlines around the world for their outstanding work around the skin microbiome that opened the door for a new approach to skincare. After being the first in the world to discover a link between the skin microbiome and the process of skin aging, in a study titled "Spermidine-induced recovery of human dermal structure and barrier function by skin microbiome", last month the manufacturer opened the world's first "Microbiome Platform Research Centre" with two goals in mind: ▪ Map the skin microbial genome of the human population according to country and race ▪ Use artificial intelligence to analyse this data and create custom cosmetics You can see their work in action in the new Red Blemish Cica Soothing Cream developed for @dr.g_official. Compared to their bestselling "Red Blemish Clear Soothing Cream" (another Cosmax formula), this cream was especially created to support skin barrier function based on Cosmax's research on the skin microbiome. The star ingredient of the product is “Centella Biome”, a patented biome culture jointly developed by Dr.G and Cosmax using Centella Asiatica from Jeju Island. Although it's too early for me to tell you about the long term results of the product, I must say I was truly impressed by the improved soothing properties of the formula. The cream contains 5x the amount of Dr.G's signature 5-Cica Complex compared to their standard Clear Soothing Cream and I could immediately tell from the first application, because this cream relives redness in the blink of an eye and I mean it. [I won the product through a competition of their Korean website] #닥터지 #닥터지체험단 #닥터지레드블레미쉬 #레드블레미쉬시카수딩크림 #병풀바이옴수분크림 #수분크림
    odilemonod
    odilemonod
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    Follow
    🇬🇧 (🇮🇹 nei commenti) You probably heard of "probiotic skincare" and how it has recently taken #kbeauty by storm, but not many people know that probiotic skincare is more than just a temporary fad in Korea. South Korea is arguably the country that is currently investing the most in research involving the skin microbiome (a beneficial ecosystem of microorganisms inhabiting the skin) and the topical application of (inactivated) probiotics. A Korean cosmetic manufacturer called Cosmax (@cosmax_people) in particular, made the headlines around the world for their outstanding work around the skin microbiome that opened the door for a new approach to skincare. After being the first in the world to discover a link between the skin microbiome and the process of skin aging, in a study titled "Spermidine-induced recovery of human dermal structure and barrier function by skin microbiome", last month the manufacturer opened the world's first "Microbiome Platform Research Centre" with two goals in mind: ▪ Map the skin microbial genome of the human population according to country and race ▪ Use artificial intelligence to analyse this data and create custom cosmetics You can see their work in action in the new Red Blemish Cica Soothing Cream developed for @dr.g_official. Compared to their bestselling "Red Blemish Clear Soothing Cream" (another Cosmax formula), this cream was especially created to support skin barrier function based on Cosmax's research on the skin microbiome. The star ingredient of the product is “Centella Biome”, a patented biome culture jointly developed by Dr.G and Cosmax using Centella Asiatica from Jeju Island. Although it's too early for me to tell you about the long term results of the product, I must say I was truly impressed by the improved soothing properties of the formula. The cream contains 5x the amount of Dr.G's signature 5-Cica Complex compared to their standard Clear Soothing Cream and I could immediately tell from the first application, because this cream relives redness in the blink of an eye and I mean it. [I won the product through a competition of their Korean website] #닥터지 #닥터지체험단 #닥터지레드블레미쉬 #레드블레미쉬시카수딩크림 #병풀바이옴수분크림 #수분크림
    3 weeks ago
    View on Instagram |
    1/10
  • 🇬🇧 Fair skin has always been seen as a beauty ideal in South Korea, but did you know that for a brief period of time that goes from the second half of the 1970s until the early 90s, sporting a tan or dark(ish) skin was considered chic and fashionable? After the Korean War, South Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world for almost a decade, until a rapid economic growth during the 1960s and the 1970s. At the end of the 1970s, some well-off Koreans could afford to go on exotic holidays for the first time, leading sun tans to quickly become a symbol of wealth and leisure. The trend was short-lived, but it's nice looking back at a different aspect of Korean Beauty. In the main picture, the 1983 summer campaign from Amore Revital. 🇮🇹 La pelle candida è da sempre considerata l'ideale di bellezza predominante in Corea del Sud, ma sapevate che per un breve periodo di tempo che va dalla seconda metà degli anni '70 fino agli inizi degli anni '90, avere la pelle scura (o quasi) ed essere abbronzati era considerato chic e alla moda? Dopo la guerra di Corea, la Corea del Sud rimase uno dei paesi più poveri del mondo per quasi un decennio, fino alla rapida crescita economica evvenuta negli anni '60 e '70. Alla fine degli anni '70, alcuni coreani più agiati potevano permettersi per la prima volta di andare in vacanza in destinazioni esotiche, e questo rese l'abbronzatura un simbolo di ricchezza e prosperità. La tendenza ebbe vita breve, ma è interessante guardare la cosmetica coreana da un aspetto così differente da quello a cui siamo abituati. Nell'immagine principale, la campagna pubblicitaria estiva del 1983 del marchio Amore Revital. #korea🇰🇷 #KoreanRetroSaturday #vintagemagazine #imagineyourkorea #seoulsearching #koreatravel #wheninkorea #koreabyme #ig_korea #koreanculture #한국사 #explorekorea #koreanhistory #koreanbeauty #koreancosmetics #kbeautylover #koreanskincare #kbeautyblogger #Hyangjang #amorepacific #historylovers #abbeatthealgorithm #abcommunity #culturacoreana #linguacoreana #coreadelsud #cosmeticicoreani #skincarecoreana #cosmesicoreana
    odilemonod
    odilemonod
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    🇬🇧 Fair skin has always been seen as a beauty ideal in South Korea, but did you know that for a brief period of time that goes from the second half of the 1970s until the early 90s, sporting a tan or dark(ish) skin was considered chic and fashionable? After the Korean War, South Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world for almost a decade, until a rapid economic growth during the 1960s and the 1970s. At the end of the 1970s, some well-off Koreans could afford to go on exotic holidays for the first time, leading sun tans to quickly become a symbol of wealth and leisure. The trend was short-lived, but it's nice looking back at a different aspect of Korean Beauty. In the main picture, the 1983 summer campaign from Amore Revital. 🇮🇹 La pelle candida è da sempre considerata l'ideale di bellezza predominante in Corea del Sud, ma sapevate che per un breve periodo di tempo che va dalla seconda metà degli anni '70 fino agli inizi degli anni '90, avere la pelle scura (o quasi) ed essere abbronzati era considerato chic e alla moda? Dopo la guerra di Corea, la Corea del Sud rimase uno dei paesi più poveri del mondo per quasi un decennio, fino alla rapida crescita economica evvenuta negli anni '60 e '70. Alla fine degli anni '70, alcuni coreani più agiati potevano permettersi per la prima volta di andare in vacanza in destinazioni esotiche, e questo rese l'abbronzatura un simbolo di ricchezza e prosperità. La tendenza ebbe vita breve, ma è interessante guardare la cosmetica coreana da un aspetto così differente da quello a cui siamo abituati. Nell'immagine principale, la campagna pubblicitaria estiva del 1983 del marchio Amore Revital. #korea🇰🇷 #KoreanRetroSaturday #vintagemagazine #imagineyourkorea #seoulsearching #koreatravel #wheninkorea #koreabyme #ig_korea #koreanculture #한국사 #explorekorea #koreanhistory #koreanbeauty #koreancosmetics #kbeautylover #koreanskincare #kbeautyblogger #Hyangjang #amorepacific #historylovers #abbeatthealgorithm #abcommunity #culturacoreana #linguacoreana #coreadelsud #cosmeticicoreani #skincarecoreana #cosmesicoreana
    4 weeks ago
    View on Instagram |
    1/10
  • 🇬🇧 (🇮🇹 nei commenti) On my social channels I often talk about Hanbang skincare, a branch of Korean skincare based on the principles of Traditional Korean Medicine (TKM). Recently you might see many Korean brands using classic Hanbang ingredients in their products like Ginseng, Artemisia, or Heartleaf, but what sets apart an authentic Hanbang skincare product from a Hanbang-inspired product? Simple: formulation. There's a lot more to Hanbang skincare than a combination of herbal ingredients: the strength of Hanbang skincare lays in formulations that reproduce authentic TKM prescriptions using TKM's principles of herbal synergism. To show you what I'm talking about I will use as an example the formula of the Hwanyu Imperial Youth First Serum by @thehistoryofwhoo_official. The formula of this serum provided by the brand shows the combination of two principles used in TKM: ▪ The Jun, Chen, Zuo, Shi principle ▪ The Wu Xing (Five Elements) principle The Jun, Chen, Zuo, Shi principle is considered to be the base formulation principle of TKM and Oriental Medicine in general. According to this theory, formulas should be composed of 4 elements: ▪ Jun (The Monarch) > The main active principle(s) ▪ Chen (The Minister) > ingredients that enhance the effectiveness of the main actives ▪ Zuo (The Assistant) > Ingredients that target secondary symptoms of a condition, as well as eliminate side-effects caused by Jun and Chen and reduce any potential irritation linked to the main actives. ▪ Shi (The Envoy) > ingredients that harmonise the previous principles and guide them to the right organs. On the other hand, the Wu Xing Principles combines ingredients with five different properties corresponding to the five elements that constitute the natural balance of the world in TKM: Fire, Water, Wood, Metal, and Earth. #한방 #피부미인 #인생템 #인스타뷰티 #홈케어 #코덕스타그램 #코덕 #스킨케어 #첫단계에센스 #생기안티에이징 #비첩순환에센스 #antiagingskincare #hanbang #kbeautyaddict #koreancosmetics #koreanskincare #skintips #abcommunity #kbeautyskincare #kbeauty #skincarelover #koreanskincareroutine #rasianbeauty #cosmesicoreana #cosmesinaturale #cosmeticicoreani #skincarecoreana #coreadelsud #culturacorea
    odilemonod
    odilemonod
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    Follow
    🇬🇧 (🇮🇹 nei commenti) On my social channels I often talk about Hanbang skincare, a branch of Korean skincare based on the principles of Traditional Korean Medicine (TKM). Recently you might see many Korean brands using classic Hanbang ingredients in their products like Ginseng, Artemisia, or Heartleaf, but what sets apart an authentic Hanbang skincare product from a Hanbang-inspired product? Simple: formulation. There's a lot more to Hanbang skincare than a combination of herbal ingredients: the strength of Hanbang skincare lays in formulations that reproduce authentic TKM prescriptions using TKM's principles of herbal synergism. To show you what I'm talking about I will use as an example the formula of the Hwanyu Imperial Youth First Serum by @thehistoryofwhoo_official. The formula of this serum provided by the brand shows the combination of two principles used in TKM: ▪ The Jun, Chen, Zuo, Shi principle ▪ The Wu Xing (Five Elements) principle The Jun, Chen, Zuo, Shi principle is considered to be the base formulation principle of TKM and Oriental Medicine in general. According to this theory, formulas should be composed of 4 elements: ▪ Jun (The Monarch) > The main active principle(s) ▪ Chen (The Minister) > ingredients that enhance the effectiveness of the main actives ▪ Zuo (The Assistant) > Ingredients that target secondary symptoms of a condition, as well as eliminate side-effects caused by Jun and Chen and reduce any potential irritation linked to the main actives. ▪ Shi (The Envoy) > ingredients that harmonise the previous principles and guide them to the right organs. On the other hand, the Wu Xing Principles combines ingredients with five different properties corresponding to the five elements that constitute the natural balance of the world in TKM: Fire, Water, Wood, Metal, and Earth. #한방 #피부미인 #인생템 #인스타뷰티 #홈케어 #코덕스타그램 #코덕 #스킨케어 #첫단계에센스 #생기안티에이징 #비첩순환에센스 #antiagingskincare #hanbang #kbeautyaddict #koreancosmetics #koreanskincare #skintips #abcommunity #kbeautyskincare #kbeauty #skincarelover #koreanskincareroutine #rasianbeauty #cosmesicoreana #cosmesinaturale #cosmeticicoreani #skincarecoreana #coreadelsud #culturacorea
    1 month ago
    View on Instagram |
    1/10
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