Okay, it’s after Thanksgiving! That means I can write this post, and no one can say that it is “too early for Christmas”. The Most Wonderful Time of the Year is quickly approaching, as we all scramble to buy holiday presents for our loved ones. I’m going to see if I can make this a wee bit easier on you and layout gifts for K-Beauty lovers. Welcome to my K-Beauty Holiday Gifts Guide 2018!
How are we going to do this?
I’m going to break these down by price point for you all. Also, almost all of the products in this list will have cash back through E-Bates. E-Bates is a cashback site that gives you money for purchases you may have already made. They even have an extension for multiple browsers so when you go to a website that uses Ebates, it will automatically pop up the cashback button to make sure you are saving money. I use this all the time, and it saves me a TON of money that I wouldn’t have saved otherwise. So go and get it,
If you’ve never used EBates before, you can use this link to get $10 when making a qualified purchase of $25 when using EBates. You will also get whatever percent cashback is being offered from the site you are purchasing from. A lot of the below links will be Sephora, which typically has 4% cashback, or Sokoglam, which typically has 3%. On occasion, these percentages double.
K-Beauty Gifts $25 and Under
LANEIGE Lip Sleeping Mask Holiday Edition ($20)
I use the Laneige Lip Sleeping Mask almost every single night, especially moving into the winter. It is extremely hydrating and really keeps the lips from getting crusty. Being in such a cold, harsh season, keeping your lips hydrated really prevents cracking, dead skin buildup, and in extreme cases bleeding. This set comes with 20 g of the product, and a little rubber spatula so you can spread the product evenly on your lips. On top of that, this product smells like a mix of berries.
Belif Winter Waterdrop Kit ($23)
This set contains a number of travel size items that are perfect for winter weather, making it a great K-Beauty gift for the winter season. On top of that, this kit contains all of the main steps needed for a simple K-Beauty skincare routine. All of these products have clean, gentle formulas too. This set contains sample sizes of the Creamy Cleansing Foam Moist, Hungarian Water Essence, Moisturizing Eye Bomb, The True Cream Aqua Bomb, and the Aqua Bomb Sleeping Mask. I have used a number of products in this kit, and all of them are incredibly hydrating! On top of all of that, this is a great deal for the amount of product you get.
LANEIGE Water Sleeping Mask ($25)
Another excellent product for the winter months, the Laneige Water Sleeping Mask is one of my favorites. It’s lightweight but full of hyaluronic acid which locks hydration in your face throughout the night. Since we are all blasting dry, heated air day in and day out, this mask is one of my keys to preventing my skin from getting chapped throughout the course of winter. On top of that, it is very cooling on the face because of its gel texture, so it prevents your face from being puffy when you wake up in the morning. Highly recommend, and I, myself, have used at least 3 jars of this on my face.
Sokoglam 10 Days of Sheet Masks ($25)
When it comes to curating excellent products and sets, Sokoglam typically takes the cake. Sokoglam is a site created by a Korean-American Esthetician, Charlotte Cho. Whenever she curates something, and puts a set together, you can trust that it is good. This set is worth 37$ and contains the following masks: ACWELL Drinks Purifying Daanje Mask, Benton Snail Bee High Content Mask(tried and enjoyed), Enature Birch Juice Hydro Cream Sheet Mask , KLAVUU Green Pearlsation Teatree Care Mask (Tried and enjoyed), MANEFIT Beauty Planner Honey, MEG Two Step Jelly Mask Soothing & Brightening (tried and enjoyed), MANEFIT Beauty Planner Lavender, NEOGEN Pink Cactus Liftmax Knit Mask, SKINFOOD Hydro Fitting Snail Mask Sheet, SKINR x LAB Marine Moisture Mineral Mask, a velvet pouch with the masks in it. The brands that I haven’t tried the mask itself from I have tried other products from the brand. All of them have some pretty good products!
K-Beauty Gifts $50 and Under
LANEIGE Kiss and Make Up Set ($28)
As is suitable for a company’s name that means “the snow” in French, LANEIGE has a number of K-Beauty holiday gifts suitable for the season. The Kiss and Make Up Set is a set that has 4 different flavors of theLip Sleeping Mask for you to try out, including a full-size of the original berry flavor. The nice thing about this gift set is that it makes a great stocking stuffer if you’ve got 3 people in your life who would use it. You can keep the big one for yourself, and give the mini ones to your friends!
Belif Merry Merry Moisturizers ($38)
This set is such an excellent choice for K-Beauty lovers that I ended up purchasing it for myself as well. Belif makes very clean simple formulas for moisturizers, and they have a ton of different products for different skin types. In the winter months, when our skin is craving moisture, the Belif Merry Merry Moisturizers set is an excellent choice. It comes with a full sized The true cream-moisturizing bomb plus miniatures of their moisturizing eye bomb and their new aqua bomb sleeping mask. I, personally, resorted to the moisturizing bomb last winter when my skin was dying last winter, and it definitely helped. All of the things in this set would get used immediately by your K-Beauty lover.
Dr. Jart Mask Heroes Face Savers ($36)
If you have a K-Beauty lover in your house, they are most definitely fans of sheet masks. In K-Beauty, throwing a mask on your face while watching a K-Drama and yelling at the TV is a staple! When it comes to masks, Dr. Jart is considered top of the line. This set contains 6 Dr. Jart masks for only $36, which is a bargain, as this set would retail for $57 on it’s own. I have used a number of Dr. Jart Products, and they are great for the winter months as they nurture the skin with great, clean ingredients.
Sokoglam Best of K-Beauty Set ($32)
This K-Beauty set has a little bit of everything. This $32 set from Sokoglam comes with sample sizes of a number of K-Beauty Products that are suitable for all skin types. This include all of the following: Real Ferment Micro Essence travel size (20ml), A-Thera Peeling Stick (Single), Tea Tree Cleansing Water travel size, Time Stop Collagen Ampoule travel size, EX Repair Control EGF travel size (I have tried about half of this line. You can read my thoughts here), Keratin Power Glue travel size (this is one of my favorite products as well. My thoughts are here), Licorice pH Balancing Cleansing Toner travel size,
K-Beauty Gifts $75 and Under
Soko Glam Quick Starter Kit ($56)
This Set from Sokoglam includes a number of K-Beauty
SokoGlam Best of K-Beauty Essentials Set ($85)
The SokoGlam Best of K-Beauty Essentials Set comes with the following products: Klavuu Pure Pearlsation Revitalizing Facial Cleansing Foam (tried and enjoyed), Neogen Canadian Clay Pore Cleanser (tried and enjoyed), Neogen H2 Dermadeca Serum Spray, Klairs Rich Moist Soothing Cream, and
K-Beauty Gift $100 and Under
AMOREPACIFIC Bamboo Me Beautiful Kit ($90)
Okay, I will not lie, I am seriously tempted to buy this set for myself. AMOREPACIFIC is considered to be one of the “King Kahuna” brands in the K-BEauty industry, and there is a reason for that. All of their products are top-notch when it comes to quality. The Bamboo Beautiful Set has so many amazing AMOREPACIFIC Products in it that I have previously tried, and just haven’t gotten around to buying the full sizes of.AMOREPACIFIC has formulated all of the products in this set with papaya enzymes, green tea, and bamboo sap. This set contains the following: a 1 oz/ 30 mL Treatment Cleansing Foam, a 2.5 oz/ 70 g Treatment Enzyme Peel, a 0.5 oz/ 15 mL MOISTURE BOUND Rejuvenating Crème, and a 0.1 oz/ 3 mL MOISTURE BOUND Rejuvenating Eye Treatment Gel. Although not all are full-size products, this does have a full-size enzyme peel, and that’s a really expensive product.
SOKOGLAM 5-Step Oily Skin Set ($90)
Okay, so there are a bunch of sets that Sokoglam has developed for this, so I am only going to post about one of them. Sokoglam has actually gone and made it easy on all of you, and created curated sets of great starter
K-Beauty Gifts $100 and Over
10-Step Korean Skincare Routine ($199)
Just like Sokoglam has developed 5-Step skincare routine sets, they have also developed a number 10-step routine sets that are perfect for giving anyone a full 10-step coveted Korean skincare routine. The photo above is specifically for anybody who has normal skin. If you need to know if the person you are trying to shop for has”normal skin” if they don’t complain about much with their skin, it is probably normal. This means that it doesn’t dry out very easily, they don’t complain about breakouts or large pores either. These are also the people who are rarely sensitive to products as well. I have 4 words for those who fit in this category: I secretly hate you. They do have a couple of other 10 step sets. These are for oily, combination, and dry skin. You can view those here. They are pricey, but theyreally are a good discount, especially if the person you know doesn’t have a routine at all yet. You will look like a skincare god!
Final Thoughts:
Why are all the options above skincare specific?
The answer to this is simple. Korean Beauty focuses first on beauty from the inside, looking out. Unlike Western Beauty where we look at a problem, and immediately look for a way to either hide it or combat it, Korean beauty tries to tackle the problem from the source. You have dry hair? Alright, let’s take a look at the scalp first, and figure out what is going on there. Your skin is prone to breakouts? okay, let’s look at diet, where they acne is placed, and make lifestyle adjustments to prevent that. If you have a skin or hair problem, this is a direct indicator of your overall health. They look at everything.
On top of all of that, Korean beauty focuses on a “my face but better” style of beauty. They don’t do heavy eye or lip looks.All of it focuses on getting that perfect, smooth complexion. In order to get this, you need to focus on your skin. The better your skin, the less makeup you need, and the easier the “my face but better” look gets!
Are there actual makeup products I can buy?
Of course, but you will most likely want to ask the person you are shopping for what exactly they want. All makeup products come in different shades, and every shade is not right for every person. We all have cool-toned or warm-toned skin that looks better with different makeup products on it. So, unless you know a ton about the specific person you are buying for, or are just going to buy them an eye shadow palette that is in their favorite color, I would make sure that you talk directly to the person you are shopping for.
Are there discounts on these products?
Well, since the holiday season is coming, there are discounts on almost everything, but if you want to save a wee bit more on top of the prices, I do highly recommend that you use EBates. You can use this link to get $10 when making a qualified purchase of $25 when using EBates. You will also get whatever percent cashback is being offered from the site you are purchasing from. A lot of the below links will be Sephora, which typically has 4% cashback, or Sokoglam, which typically has 3%. On occasion, these percentages double, especially around the holidays! It’s a huge lifesaver, and I love getting the checks from them every quarter!
Are there any holiday sets that you are going to buy this holiday season, K-Nuggets, even if they are just for yourself? Let me know in the comments below.
사랑합니다!
–Rachel
