Mask Monday is back (finally)! 

My little weekly feature where I share with you all some of the masks I have tried whether it be sheet mask, was off mask, peel off, hair mask or whatever kind of mask I get my hands on! Though, let's be honest, 99% of them tend to be sheet masks! Today's one is a super cute one

The sheet mask featured in this post was gifted to me by Mask Time in one of the monthly boxes. 

Holika Holika Essence Jelly Mask - Sweet Peko Edition // Strawberry

I've yet to use a product from Holika Holika before but I've heard a mixture of opinions when it comes to both their skincare and makeup. So, a good place to start might be with their skincare and sheet masks are usually the most affordable aspect of a brand's skincare range. Last year, Holikax2 did a collaboration with Fujiya Milky Candy and their mascot Peko for a range of adorably packaged products. The brand itself is highly popular in Japan and I've actually tried the Matcha version of the sweets and loved them (thanks Ellis!!). So this collab appealed to both fans of the brand and those who enjoy collecting adorable packaging. I highly appreciate how the actual packet looks like the sweet bags!

Scent & Essence // THIS DID NOT SMELL LIKE STRAWBERRIES!!! Which disappointed me greatly. Being infused with strawberry extract, I was hoping for a strawberry scent, however, it ended up being more citrus/slightly herbal (?) which was a little disappointing. There is a TONNE of the essence in this package though, there's definitely enough to either keep the excess in a pot to use for a few days or apply on your body. It has a water jelly type texture, which is quite refreshing and gives the impression it's going to be very moisturising.

Fit & Material // As with a lot of novelty character masks, this mask has Peko-chan's face making up the design of the entire mask. A little creepy, sure. But cute all the same. Though my daughter ended up finding it a bit scary on me. It was a little big for my face particularly the bottom half of it, so I had to do a lot of pulling about to make it sit and fit onto my face properly. The actual mask itself is quite thick and sturdy and feels woven.

Overall // I used this for 20 minutes following a double cleanse and tone. 
Initially, my skin appeared brighter and thoroughly moisturised. It felt supple and overall just felt really soft. The mask left a lot of essence on my face so I had to massage it in for a little bit to make sure my skin just didn't have a thick layer sitting on the skin and so that it could be absorbed faster. There was a little stickiness left afterwards that took maybe half an hour or so to go away, but this isn't too much of a big issue because it wasn't dramatically sticky. This was generally a very well performing mask, doing as it says and doing it well.

Repurchase? Since this was limited edition, I know this won't be around for all too long, so I may buy one or two more but I'm probably going to go ahead and try some of Holika Holika's other sheet masks along with their make up.

Let me know your mask of the week!

Purito started appearing all over K-beauty Instagram as soon as word got out about it and its popularity has continued to grow and grow. Being a brand that intends on having products that are honest and safe, containing naturally sourced ingredients. It's easy to see why this has made them popular, caring primarily about the actual quality and effects of the product rather than just the appearance of the packaging, though I do really enjoy the aesthetic of their packaging in all honesty!

I was recently contacted by Shikaglam (this site is in Spanish as they are based in Barcelona) who is the only current European distributor of the brand. They sent me a whole bunch of samples to try from Purito and to give my impressions on them. So I have decided to do this in the form of a wishlist of the products I liked the most from the selection given and give a little mini first impression on said products. 

Purito's products are generally quite inexpensive, with the most expensive products being about £18. So while maybe not ideal if you're on a very tight budget, but still affordable even if it's just to try one or two products from them. I've given all the samples I got a few uses to see how I found them and below I have listed the four products that I enjoyed the most and would like to continue using at a later point in time.

Defence Barrier PH Cleanser 

I've used this a couple of times in the morning as I enjoy using a light, gentle cleanser in the morning to just get rid of any dust and debris that has fallen onto my skin while I've been sleeping. I've found this to cleanse extremely well while not being harsh on the skin. Leaving it feeling clean but without that ~squeaky~ clean feel (which is what I look for). It does have quite a strong scent to it, however, this is natural due to the ingredients contained as they haven't added excess fragrance. I would like to see how this fares on my skin over prolonged usage and I've been looking for an ideal morning cleanser.

Centella Green Level All In One Mild Pad 

This was actually one of the products I had my eye on the most when it came to Purito. I've been so intrigued by the idea of these types of pads from various brands and I know Centella is an ingredient that is supposed to be amazing for acne scars. I usually used this after my double cleanse or in the morning when I wake up to get rid of dust and found it left my skin feeling smooth and hydrated at the same time and I hope that with regular use, they would help my scarring. This is definitely going to be one of the purchases I make from Purito in time and a lot of my K-beauty pals love them too.

Centella Green Level Eye Cream

Eye cream is something in my skincare routine and I know it's something that I should be using a lot more. This intends on restoring moisture to the undereye area and that's exactly what I need (though really I could do with tattooed concealer or something as I'm cursed with chronic eyebags). My trial of this product has left me with the skin around my eyes being thoroughly hydrated and I feel like this could be a great addition to my routine skin care.

Sea Buckthorn Vital 70 Cream

This is a cream I've actually seen doing the rounds and from my trials of it, I've found it to be very nourishing and moisturising without leaving any oiliness on the skin. The natural fruity scent that comes from the ingredients as well makes it even nicer to use. Buckthorn is an ingredient that is supposed to help with skin tissue regeneration, so I'm hoping if I was to begin using this regularly, it may help with some of my hyperpigmentation.



I will, at some point, get a hold of these products throughout the year and give my full and thorough opinion on the products I do pick up. I can highly appreciate the quality of the products and how they have behaved on my skin in the short trial time, however, I would like to be able to see a long term effect. So, be sure to keep an eye out for a haul of these products and my eventual views on them!

Have you tried Purito before? If so, which products of theirs would you recommend?
If not, are there any from them you're desperate to give a go?

I know we are already a few weeks into 2019, but I always find the first two weeks a bit of a bumpy step to make a start to any changes as I have things like my birthday and such so close to the start of the year that I tend to look to aim towards my goals after that. I know some people see a new year as nothing different, however, I always think it's nice to plan ahead and think of what things you want to achieve and do. So, I've spent some time over the last few weeks coming up with some things that I want to look back on the year and say I have managed to succeed with. 2018 was a year where I met absolutely none of my goals and in some cases, got even further away from those goals as the year went on. I had a very stressful first half to the year and I seemed to not be able to get myself out of habits and mindset during that time, so I'm hoping 2019 will be different.

Prior to my weight gain

Eat Healthier, Get Fitter, Lose Weight, Improve My Relationship With Food

This one is first and it's probably the most common one you see from people. This was actually one of the 2018 goals that I fell very far from. I ended up gaining about 16kg (about 2.5 stone), became very unfit and my relationship with food got worse to the point I just let it be a constant comfort and boredom killer. I intend on allowing myself unconditional permission to all foods while focusing primarily on eating more nutrient-dense foods and lessening my intake of nutrient sparse ones. That side of things is probably going to be the hardest part of this goal, but I'm determined to pull myself through it. This combined with exercising, focusing on strength training, jogging (when it's at least somewhat warm) and short HIIT workouts, I'm hoping to improve my overall fitness, stamina and body strength. I'm lucky that I'm the type that manages to build muscle easily, I just need to make sure the effort is there. I want to lose the 16kg I gained last year at the minimum, but I would like to lose an additional 7-10kg, however, I won't be giving myself a big push to do that and will let that come in its own time. However, I may find myself happy and comfortable at a completely different weight so I won't make this the only deciding factor in everything.

I always feel like I need to justify my reasons for wanting to lose weight, especially since last year I saw a lot of posts and threads about how wanting to lose weight is fatphobic or at least showcases some form of internalised fatphobia (though I'm not denying that these are issues that do exist). I do want to lose weight for aesthetic, I like my body the most when I look a certain way and I know that my body usually looks that way when I put effort into looking after my body, which I feel like is my own form of body positivity. It's something that makes me feel happy and therefore positive in myself, something that I've severely lacked over this past year.

Study Korean Again

I began teaching myself Korean in 2010, putting a big focus on it in 2011-2012 where I got to a point I could have simple, basic conversations and I could translate some things here and there with a little help from the naver dictionary extension. I haven't properly studied it since then (apart from the odd time on Duolingo) and my Korean has gotten terrible. I can still understand the alphabet fully and know a lot of words and some grammar aspects but I can't write or speak it anymore properly, I'm lucky if I can translate stuff anymore. I don't have a massive amount of time to study this due to me working, being a parent, blogging and my other hobbies. But I would like to spend maybe an hour a week dedicated to studying it and getting to grips with it again. Being able to understand Korean meant that I was able to become friends with a Japanese girl back in 2012 who didn't speak any English but was well versed in Korean so we could converse with each other, so it had its benefits.

Plus, Stuart would like us to take a trip there (since he knew I was going to move there for a year but aspects of life got in the way) and it will be better for us getting about if I can actually converse and not just expect everyone to speak in English.

Take More Photos

Whether artsy, more stylistic or just photos of family and times that make me happy. I have a moderately expensive camera (£480 including the lens) and I need to put it to more use than just taking my blog photos. I'm someone who usually likes taking photos at events and when I'm spending time with people, I like to preserve happy memories. However, whenever I was doing things with some people, they would point out that I was doing this and spoke as if it was something weird or bad, so I ended up subconsciously holding back on what photos I was taking. So, I'm not going to allow that to bother me now and just continue to freely take all the photos I want and even try and improve my photography in some way. This will also require a lot more time, which will hopefully help with my overall productivity.

Go Out + Do More

I've been a bit of a hermit all my life and was never really someone that went out very much. I got especially bad for this last year when I wasn't working and I just never did anything and stayed in the house all the time. So, I hope on my days off and time before work, that I can spend that time going outdoors and going and doing more exciting things than sitting about doing nothing. This means Rinoa gets to experience more things and gets to go and see more places. I do feel guilty that over the past year, especially as she's nearly 3 now, I haven't taken her out to do more things due to my own lack of motivation to do anything. I always complain that life is boring, but I don't do anything to make it exciting, so this is something I want to do and something I will put the effort into.

As part of this, I am also planning to go to Belgium in the summer to see my dearest friend Kaye (maybe my wee Swede too) This will be Rinoa's first time abroad and also my first time going outside the UK to anywhere that isn't Majorca. I've been wanting to go to Belgium since 2013 and so many factors got in the way so I will do it this year! Hopefully, we will be able to go abroad at least once a year or two years at the minimum as I want to see more of the world and experience different food and cultures.

Be More Organised

I feel like sometimes when you grow up with parents that behave or act a certain way, you either end up replicating them or becoming the opposite of them. I'm the latter when it comes to my mum. My mum has always been a very clean, tidy, organised person and her idea of clean is miles beyond what most people's is. I'm not the tidiest person in the world and I find things get unorganised very quickly. I do make attempts but they usually fall flat. As my mum says to me, I have very good intentions to be organised but don't really end up putting things into practice. So this year, I hope to make a change to that and get my house in a state where it's organised, everything has a place and it's super easy to clean and keep tidy without having to do a full gut out all the time of stuff I don't need.

Finish More Games

I have a massive backlog, and I know if you speak to most gamers they will tell you the same thing. I'm so bad for getting a game, starting it, maybe doing the first part or getting halfway through but just not finishing it. I want to finish 1-2 games a month if I can manage more than that, great. However, I know with how busy I am, I can't expect too much. I've already got my games planned for finishing for January and February so I will see how I progress with them and what games I actually complete this year (I promise I will do a look back on the year of games for me when the year ends!). Though, with Kingdom Hearts 3 coming out this month, I doubt I'm going to be playing much more than that for a good while!

Work More on My Blog

My blog is my little place of pride. While I may not have the best, most amazing or successful blog in the world, I've felt nothing but pride for it. I have met some amazing people during my time of blogging and I've had some amazing opportunities with brands and stores that have given me the chance to try new products and share them with you guys. I hope that this year I can spend time improving my content further, making it something more insightful than just reviews (as much as I love doing them). I want to help those that want to get more into skincare find products that may help them, with the majority being affordable. I've grown up with severe cystic acne and I've been left with the scars from it, so I'm constantly working to improve my skin's overall appearance despite what my genetics have done to damage my skin growing up. Skincare and makeup is self-care for me and I want to improve in both areas.

I also want to do more creative projects when it comes to kkochsongi, make things a little more interesting for people to read and look at.

Start Youtube (?)  

This is a maybe, I've thought about this a lot over the last two years and it's something I want to start and do for some fun. Sharing different things with everyone and sharing my experiences with products (I find things such as foundation/BB creams etc are easier to showcase in video form). Even if I just upload one video this year, I'll be happy and I'm not going to put too much pressure on myself for this but I know it's something I want to do and a few of my friends would like to see me doing. Though I don't think my awful Scottish accent will make for the most enjoyable of listening we will see.

Save Money

Stuart and I have been living in this small flat for the majority of our relationship and while it is a nice little home, it's too small for all the things the two of us and Rinoa have. It just feels a bit cramped and we could do with a bigger living space and ideally, somewhere with a garden so Rinoa can spend more time outdoors. On top of getting a new house, we would also like to have our wedding finally, since we have been engaged for 3 years now. We initially thought we would end up getting married in 2020, but due to not exactly having the most money behind us, we might have to wait a bit longer for it.

I have a few other smaller things I would like to achieve but these are ones that I'll not be putting too much of a focus on since I feel the others are the most important to me.

• Learn more recipes from scratch and cook more
• Get better at replying to people (this is important but I'm also a busy person so it can't be helped at times)
• Take up a new hobby of some sort
• Find a style that works best for me in both makeup and fashion
• Continue to work at my current job but try to constantly improve my work 
• Stress less

Happy New Year Everyone! Hope everyone enjoyed the holiday season however they ended up spending it! Now, I know you all missed me posting on my blog ever so much, so here I am back with some more content for you all to enjoy and I hope in 2019 I am able to bring you guys more insightful content to help you on your own beauty journey.

COSRX is a brand I've been lusting over for the past 5 or so years but just never managed to get my foot in the door by buying their products. However, I finally began getting a few bits and pieces at the end of last year to give them a try and see what products from them I would like. One thing I am trying to do with my skincare routine is to make sure I am adding acids regularly. I've only recently been learning about the exfoliating benefits of them especially for people like myself who suffer from acne and acne scarring. The first product I had bought was the AHA/BHA Clarifying Treatment Toner which I have been using the past month or two and have been really enjoying it. For Christmas, I asked for these two products I am going to talk about in this post along with all the make up I got too (keep an eye out for that!)

COSRX AHA 7 Whitehead Power Liquid

PHA Moisture Renewal Power Cream

Hey there everyone! ♡

I thought I would do a little post to announce that I'm taking a little hiatus from my blog. From this post until January 2019.

This isn't for any particularly dramatic reason, there's no need to worry. It's simply a case of me knowing I'm not going to have the time until then to actually focus on my blog properly. My work is going to be fairly busy with it being Christmas time (there's going to be a tonne of parties we need to serve during this time and I can just see it being crazy busy). The time I'm not working? I want to spend with my family, doing festive things and trying to get my house fully organised for Christmas so I can enter the new year in an organised house without the stress of there being a mess about the place. We have a small house with a lot of clutter and I would rather focus on sorting that out than writing up a blog post.

I have a few ideas of things I will be posting in the new year, so I will probably be spending a little time during my hiatus working on stuff to do with these things. But I won't be putting any pressure on myself to post or feel like I need to blog.

I've been recently inspired by a few others to change my lifestyle a bit, to live a simple, comforting life. One thing I hope to do is to share my journey in changing my lifestyle up a bit with you all, in hopes that it may inspire you. Korean beauty will remain the primary focus of the blog, nothing about that will change, but you may see a larger variation in topics being shared here and work that I hope is either inspiring or motivating to at least one person.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday (whether it's Christmas or another holiday for you) and a happy new year too. Don't forget you can get a hold of me on twitter (I mostly talk about games and kpop there tbh) or instagram as well as here!


Love to you all and thank you to all of those that have been supporting my blog either from the beginning or even just recently. It really helps me keep going with things and I hope to repay the support in content that is enjoyable for you all. I've been so fortunate a number of brands and stores have wanted to work with me this past year, I hope to return some of that to them at some point or another.

Be kind to those that treat you well. Give love to the friends you love and who love you. Let yourself live a life that you can obtain without stress and most importantly, be loving to yourself and give all the love you can to you and who can be.