Women in Korea have a long history of making their own rice water to wash their face because of the long-established skin benefits. "It's a natural moisturizer that helps slow aging, reduce dark circles, fade age spots, and brighten skin," says Kim.
The Korean skincare routine involves using a lot of hydrating products that eventually will repair your skin's barrier. This will prevent water loss and foreign substances from seeping through your skin. It also prevents signs of aging like wrinkles and fine lines.
When it comes to skincare, Cho says Korean women use “natural skin brighteners such as rice extracts, vitamin C, and licorice, as well as exfoliators. For stubborn brown spots, they will visit the dermatologist to lighten the brown spots using lasers.”
According to Cho, preventative skincare in Korea begins when you start applying sunscreen or wearing hats and clothing that protect you from sun exposure at six months old. “Not only does this prevent sunburns, but it also hinders sun damage that can contribute to ageing later in life.
In Korea, people like to wash their hair every day because of environmental pollution (fine dust, gas emissions, etc). Whereas people in America generally tend to wash hair every 2-3 days due to the common perception that it's much healthier for your hair.
Anti-aging habits
Some Westerners tend to have thin skin and fewer melanins to protect their skin from sunlight, meanwhile Korean's skin is said to have a lot of substances that absorb and decompose the sunlight in their skin structure effectively.
Since ancient times, Koreans have only used natural, harsh-free ingredients for their skincare routines: green tea, “snail slime”, bamboo extracts, propolis, and honey are just some examples of the elements they used and have passed through generations.
According to Alicia Yoon, the founder of Peach n Lily, the secret to Korean glass skin is not the products but maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Eat well and live well. Your skin will glow from within while the skincare enhances your skin further. Unfortunately, there is no way to achieve this overnight.
In Korea, skin is always first. They value skin as being more important than makeup or fashion. Their skin secret is that they are using alternative, animal and natural ingredients that a lot of popular skincare brands hadn't really considered using in the past.
Double cleansing is important. For Koreans, it's considered so necessary that no one ever washes their face just once. You must remove your make-up first and then wash your face again with a second product to get your skin deeply cleansed.
If you want to have Korean-style glass skin, you should use honey as it contains various components that are beneficial not only to the skin but also to the hair. Make sure to use only organic honey, which is high in nutrients & antioxidants and help to keep your skin flawless and smooth.
Korean beauty advocates double dose of skincare products to seal the benefits and preserve the skin's health. This is why Korean women live by the rule of double cleansing, double eye mask and double hydration in their skincare regimen.
Rice waterAnother effective way of keeping your skin glowing is applying fermented rice water to your face. This fermented rice water helps in eliminating damages caused due to UV rays. This water also helps in the formation of collagen that directly helps your skin look like glass.
One of the many benefits of applying rice water for face is its ability to soothe sun damage. This antioxidant-rich solution is a natural sunscreen and protects the skin against UV rays. It also works wonders in reducing inflammation, itching, and redness.
"Koreans value glowy, hydrated skin and would be unhappy if their skin started peeling or becoming dry," she adds. With those emollient ingredients in mind, "moisture, lots of moisture" is unsurprisingly Seoul-based board-certified dermatologist Dr. Cho Yun Joo's top advice for people dealing with acne.
Lastly, it all comes down to this: what kind of skin you want to achieve. If you want to achieve shiny, luminous dewy skin, definitely try out the Korean skincare routine! However, if you want soft and matte-looking baby skin, try out the Japanese skincare routine!
“Men and women in South Korea are meticulous when it comes to maintaining healthy hair with a three-step process. After washing the hair with shampoo and conditioner, they often apply a hair essence or hair oil to achieve a shiny head of hair. Hair masks, serums, milks and hair mists are all must-haves,” explains Cho.
The reason Asian hair tends to be thicker is that it has around 10 layers of cuticles. Cuticles are the small areas around the inner protein structure of your hair–they are there to protect those proteins.
Good Korean scrub
The intense Korean cleansing process (called “seshin”) entails soaking the body in hot water, then rubbing it with a “Korean Italy towel” – a colorful, thin loofah with a sandpaper-like texture – to rid the body of all the gunk, dirt and layers of dead skin that accumulate naturally.