Beauty review : South Korea & Western makeup!

By Nady – cover picture from Business of Fashion

Make-up looks and trends are different depending on countries such as between South Korea and Western countries as one can easily observe through social media and travels. By “Western” I mean the US and France, since they are the only countries I know more about (not telling you guys that I am a pro haha). There are indeed a lot of beauty trends differences, but I here will talk about these I see the most often in the videos, and in real life. It will thus be about what we see the most and of course, not everyone is following these trends 😉 In short, you will notice these trends on TV shows for example if you watch Keeping up with the Kardashian and kdramas you’ll definitely notice it and same if you read beauty magazines, hence this article!

Also, depending on own personal tastes and inspirations, all kind of trends are possible^^, just use make-up in whatever manner make you happy and you’ll be pretty as a result 😉 boosting our self-confidence here^^! Also, to this day many Asian beauty brands do not offer a wide range of shades especially for foundations but don’t despair yet it will change soon we hope, and usually Asian brands sold abroad can be offer a wider range than their counterparts only selling in Korea. If you’re wondering where to buy the products mentioned, here’s an article with a few shops and many now buy online (careful though about the product quality and try to buy from main online retailers!). And final detail, we are only giving a review and explanations, no sponsoring here, we tried and bought the products by ourselves 😉

From Tina Yong Youttube Channel

Let’s start with primer choices. Primer (Too cool for school is a nice one for example or Erborian’s) is used to smooth the base and for foundation to last longer. In Western countries, users tende to choose a primer which add no color while in Korea, they select a primer that illuminates the skin and creates a glowy base.

From beauty journal sociolla

Next, foundation. In Western countries, liquid and stick foundation are the most popular and users apply it with a brush or a beauty blender (for example Make-Up forever is pretty good). Girls use a foundation which, most of the time, matches their skin or the one who is the closest from their natural skin color. In Western countries it’s a kind of trend to look a little tanned, so you will meet some people who will choose to buy a foundation which is one shade darker than their natural skin tone, or they might just use bronzer for the tan effect. Then, to obtain a matte effect Korean girls will apply pressed powder on top of it.

From Make-up for ever website

In Korea, girls mostly use a cushion foundation, CC or BB cream since it seems to look more natural (according to them). Then a noticeable trend Western countries is make-up users are more into tan skin while Koreans tende to use foundation with whitening-adding benefits. One of the most famous cushions is from Etude House but Innisfree and LaNeige also offer a good range of choice!

From Nouw

For powder there’s a lot of choice available and here are a few we have tried: Clinique pressed powder, Canmake Marshamallow, E.T Lecler Bisque, Revlon Photoready powder….

From Ulta beauty

For concealer, the only difference I could find is that Korean only use it for dark circles/eyes bags while in Western countries users apply it for blemishes and for dark circles as well. We have tried the Innisfree mineral cover fit, Ettusais but also the Body shop concealer pencil and Maybelline Camouflage one with a slight preference for Innisfree because the packaging is quite convenient!

From Ebay

Contouring is the biggest difference according to me. As mentioned above, in Western countries tanned skin is a trend so users do they contouring order to look « tanner » by adding darker shades on the cheeks and chin for a thinner face, on the edges, and the nose and they blend it with a lighter color. For the contouring, you can use a dark and light concealer or powder for example. They add highlighter on there cheeks, in the bottom of the lips and the nose. In Korea, they do lighter contouring with lighter shades, not as tan as in Western countries to look cuter and innocent and with the now famous goal of trying to create a “V-shape”, aka having a V-shaped chin. They also might add a pinky blush, a really popular color. They are more into a sort of “no-make up look” and often think that Western girls put on too much make-up (a question of appreciation fo course). Pony, a popular kbeauty youtubber, recommends Etude House ones (she’s on a contract with them fyi). We haven’t tried any of these so no recommendation to share …

From Hummingdaze

Now, let’s talk about the brows. In Western countries, the trend is to have arched brows. Thus girls usually try to follow their brows’ natural arches, without radically changing this shape. They will finish by adding concealer on the bottom and the top to put a strong angled and sharp line between the brow and the skin.

From K health and beauty

In Korea on the other hand, girls are more into straight and thicker brows. They will draw a straight line following they shape in order to not look too unnatural and will fill it in with powder or pencils, something that is less usual for Western girls. Same as for contouring, we haven’t tried any so you’ll have to rely on Youtubbers and magazines for reviews!

From K health and beauty

Eyes! Western girls would rather go for strong colors when choosing eye shadows (but not always). When they use the eye liner, most of the time they do a cat eye style (or winged line) and they add fake lashes (not all the time, usually for a more party look) with a lot of mascara. In Korea, they will prefer natural colors, some pinky or brown shades. They use a brown pencil liner on the top lash line and on the corner and add a black eye liner line which follows the natural eye line. Some girls will even fill their water line but it’s quite difficult! A recent Korean beauty trend is also to use eye stick and we have tried one from Etude House and it’s quite convenient!

From shop and box

Lips is another point of difference. Western girls are more into fuller looking lips and will prefer bold and matte lipsticks (the Instagram look that is so trendy right now). In Korea girls will do the opposite and try to put a more natural lip color (peachy, light watermelon, pinky and so on). Two different application processes here :

1 – apply the deeper shade color in the middle, the lightest around and sometimes add concealer around to make the lips looks smaller.

2 – Apply the shade in the middle and blend with a finger–> That’s why you can find a lot of two colored lipstick in Korea.