Early mornings, late nights, layers of makeup, and high stress -- Fashion Week has arrived. Wait a minute, this sounds like my life in general, except insert "lots of product testing" instead of "layers of makeup." I feel for these ladies -- with a whirlwind schedule and not enough time to rest and recharge, it's tough to keep skin healthy.
I put together a Korean Skin Savior Kit for our favorite influencers hustling through Fashion Week to help them keep skin glowing and well-balanced (so much respect for these women who work so hard to bring us fresh perspectives on fashion + beauty!). I gave this a lot of thought because the kit needs to be practical: it needs to be purse + travel-friendly, easy-to-use, and most importantly, it needs to work well!
I started asking myself what helps me keep my skin balanced, especially when I travel to and from Korea every 6 weeks on average (two 14+ hour, desert-dry airplane rides!) where I'm constantly running around with back-to-back meetings scheduled, trying to look presentable.
Here are three things I try do at a minimum when I'm living through an action-movie-type time-crunch. This skincare kit is a reflection of the emergency skincare stash that lives in in my purse during these best and worst of times:
1) Stay hydrated: I have dry skin in general, but the combination of travel and lack of sleep can really strip your skin of its needed moisture. My holy grail item is the essence, always, but especially when it's a travel and/or meeting-heavy week. I also sheet mask (shamelessly) during flights (two times when it's transcontinental and transpacific) and then upon landing, I sheet mask for 5 consecutive days. I don't use sheet masks with super potent ingredients, but will focus on using humectant-rich, gentle sheet masks that hydrate my parched skin intensively. Lately, I've been rubber-masking a couple of those five days and my skin has never looked better post-long-haul flights.
I get asked a lot what my favorite mask is. My all-time favorite sheet mask of 2015 is the Cremorlab Herb Tea Blemish Minus Calming Mask. I've tried hundreds of sheet masks over the last few years curating for Peach and Lily, and I keep a really tall stack of these pink masks around because this hydrates without any irritation, calms my stressed skin down and somehow my makeup goes on better afterwards. Totally addicted.
Photocredit: Into the Gloss
2) Cleanse properly: Yes, we all know that this is important, but when your body feels like lead and you're dead tired, peeling yourself out of the bed you just collapsed onto and walking over to a sink is a total pipe dream. For those especially brutal nights, I'll always keep easy-to-use and gentle cleansing veils by my bed. I can at least make sure to get my cushion makeup off and skincare on before passing out.
3) Lips & eye care: They deserve some special handling because they're such delicate areas of the face and often, end up neglected. For eyes, I'm a huge stickler on doing eye masks every morning while I get ready. I'm prone to dark circles and extra dry surrounding eye areas so Shangpree's hydrogel eye masks are a lifesaver. They're so easy to pop on (and they stay put!) while I'm changing, packing my bag and getting ready to go. I get through my skincare steps and apply the twin masks right before my moisturizer/eye cream (don't forget this step to seal in all the great ingredients from the eye masks!) and it works like a charm every time.
More on why these eye masks are really next-level -- we introduced the Shangpree eye masks on QVC. To be able to make certain claims on air, the brand needs to provide supporting airtight documentation to back them up. It's a pretty high bar set by the fact that TV is considered more advertorial than the type of casual shopping guidance you would get from an average brick-and-mortar store. Long story short, we were able to legally say that this luxe eye mask does it all on air! It brightens the eye area, hydrates deeply, fights free radicals with antioxidants, helps reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, firms skin around the eyes, and does it with top notch ingredients like gold and black pearl. My eyes are instantly brightened after one use, which kind of makes my whole face look more radiant, no matter how late that midnight oil was burned.
Finally, chapped lips. Winter or not, my lips chap really easily, as if #dryskinproblems were my personal hashtag (it might be). So I put in some extra effort and gently scrub the dead skin cells off, making sure to follow up with a moisturizing lip treatment to keep them very well-hydrated. Our Peach Slices Tony Moly picks are a perfect fit because they work well and they're tiny (read: portable). And sometimes, you just want to pull a tiny faux peach out of your bag during a meeting ;)
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With that in mind, I included these items for our favorite influencers who've been working hard this Fashion Week (and have been happy to see a lot of them snapchatting away about how these practical kits can be used!):
- 5 sheet masks, including #ThePinkMask from Cremorlab - to keep skin well hydrated and nourished, and not throw skin's moisture levels off
- May Coop Mini Raw Sauce - because essence is everything! It'll help prep skin to absorb serums and also pack hydration into the skin so that the skin environment stays healthy.
- Mizon Acence Tea Tree Tock Blemish Spot - the combination of stress and travel can often lead to blemishes. Can't leave home without this emergency treatment, just in case.
- Shangpree Gold Black Pearl Hydrogel Eye Mask - instant hydration, radiance, firmness, smoothness in a portable tub. A must-have item. For the record, not ashamed to admit that I have one in my bag, at home, and on my desk. I'm serious about keeping those dark circles and bags to a minimum.
- Mizon Starfish Eye Cream - chock-full of lightweight, firming, hydrating and plumping ingredients, and seals everything from my eye masks right in.
- Mizon Travel All-in-One Snail Cream - it's TSA-friendly, fits in most clutches, works well as a priming moisturizer before makeup, and hydrates without any trace of greasiness.
- Tony Moly Kiss Kiss Lip Scrub - walnut shell powder gently sloughs off flakes, and jojoba and macadamia oil leave my lips really smooth, no matter how dry it gets.
- Tony Moly Mini Peach Lip Balm SPF 15 - shea butter really seals in moisture and peach essence gives it that delightful scent and further moisturizes. And of course, the added benefit of SPF 15 is awesome because not a lot of my hydrating lip balms include this thoughtful bit of protection.
- Cremorlab Mini T.E.N. Cremor Cleansing Veil - the lazy-girl solution when you're way too tired to be more industrious about cleansing. I've tried a lot of cleansing wipes and for me, what makes this one so special is that it doesn't leave skin overly dry thanks to their super hydrating, exclusive thermal water, it calms skin thanks to green tea extract, and it doesn't leave an oily or overly wet residue -- the right-after use feeling is really important to me. I love that it gets everything off, making my skin feel soft, calm and ready for my toner right after use.
These kits aren't for sale on our site as they were exclusively curated for all those influencers we love for all their dedication to cover fashion week. We're giving you the opportunity to win one of these amazing kits - we'll be doing a giveaway on Instagram, so be sure to follow us (@peachandlily) and tune in there!
Cheers to radiance - Alicia
