skincare routine: almost 2019

Previous iteration

There's been pretty much no change aside from trying out samples of Sulwhasoo. This post is mostly planning for 2019.

Core Products:
Forever sticking with my Hada Labo trio of cleansing foam, toner, and lotion. Also will keep repurchasing my Sunkiller suncreen, DHC lip balm, and Shiseido moilip. Make-up wise, just bought several back-ups of the K-palette tattoo eyeliner, which is about the only thing that doesn't smudge on my eye lids.

Looking for HGs:

• Cleansing oil: so far I've mostly used Kose's speedy oil, which is perfectly adequate. However on occasions that I travel, I switch to a variety of Shu cleansing oils. I've previously used up a small bottle of their porefinist (pink), but now it irritates my eyes. The blanc (purple) seem to be better than Kose at dislodging grits, but the price difference is too much for me to switch. Still have both the anti-oxi (green) and ultime8 (brown) in my stash to try, hurray for buying a travel set at duty-free years ago. Will bring those to ATL, and then try the Muji cleansing oil when I'm back. I've also tried Sulwhasoo's, which smells perfect. It is actually the smell of perfection. Unfortunately it doesn't fully remove my eye make-up ughhh. Will hopefully have found a favourite by the end of 2019. 
• Travel-friendly second cleanser: was previously using Tosowoong's powder cleanser, but it's finicky trying to pour out the powder while preventing water from entering the bottle. Thinking that a stick cleanser would work better. Will try to Neogen green tea cleansing stick.
• Vit C: been really liking the Melano CC this time around. So far I've gone through half a tube and have seem noticeable results (should be causation rather than correlation since I wasn't using other actives). By using it after toner rather on bare skin, it no longer feels greasy, although it might still be too much during summertime.  I have a long list of products I'm interested in trying, will report back. 
• Oil: I've consistently said that I want to try blending my own facial oils, and came sooo close to clicking the order button in UK, but alas I have not done so. Have only tried rosehip (so far the best), sea buckthorn, and rice bran. I wonder how big (if any) of a quality difference there is between branded single oils (eg. TO) and supplier sites (eg. GoW). I'll probably also try some pre-blended oils too (eg. Stratia's fortify). 

Want to Try:

• Retinol: the other well-researched active with a ton of different implementations. This is gonna take some solid weeks of reading to decide on a list. 
• Cica serum: been thinking of what ingredient I want to dedicate my serum to. I've done honey, snail, and tea tree previously. Will continue to keep a tea tree serum on hand for when breakouts happen, but will try cica as the daily option.  
• Higher strength acid: instead of a daily low % acid, I'd like to use a higher % combined AHA & BHA as a weekly peel. 

Also hair care. Mark my words, 2019 will be when I figure out how to finally make my hair look good.