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.

Peripera was a brand I only dabbled in last year, but they have quickly become one of my all time K-beauty brands. The standout point for me when it comes to Peripera is their lip products, for the affordability, the products perform amazingly and their colours available are simply gorgeous. They recently released their Autumn collection called Pink Moment, with gorgeous pink scrapbook style packaging and products with some form of pink or coral undertone. I decided to grab a few products from the range, every type apart from the eyeshadow palette because it wasn't easily available at the time of me getting this range. So, today I am going to share with you my little haul of goodies.

PERIPERA INK THE GELATO // PINK MOMENT #8, #9, #10



Of course, the key selling point of the range was the lip products, they sold products in both their original Velvet formula and their newer Gelato one. As I had never tried the newer formula I had to grab a few of these while I could. I chose the shades #8 Black Tea With Milk, #9 Peach Pink and #10 Cherry Cinnamon. My reason for choosing these particular shades was the fact that these seemed to be the ones with the slightly warmer undertones to them.


While they might look pretty similar in the swatches, they definitely have their own unique undertone and even though they look quite dark on my hand, the colours are very muted when applied to the lips. Black Tea with Milk is definitely an orange beige, while Peach Pink is a peachy beige and cherry cinnamon is a brighter pink beige. The colours work well for simple autumn looks or even just to give your face a little colour to it.

My experience with this formula has been great so far, it's non-drying and is kind of like a combination of a lip tint and lipgloss, probably quite close to the Airy Ink Velvets, but with a less ~airy~ finish to it. It's non-sticky and smells really gorgeous too! Definitely worth a try even if you're not able to grab a hold of these particular shades due to this being a limited edition collection.



PERIPERA PURE BLUSHED VELVET CHEEK // #7 COZY CREAMY ROSE


I've only ever used Peripera's base products and their lip products, so trying a blush from them was a new thing for me completely. I wanted a warm colour that could be used with most colour schemes and also not be too bright. So this rose colour seemed ideal for what I wanted.

Alright, I'm not someone who wants to gush too much about how much I adore something but this is now my favourite blush formula. It glides onto the skin like velvet, feels like velvet on the skin and doesn't streak. It melts into the skin leaving a pretty, natural-looking flush.

I'm 100% going to be buying more of this product in different shades, one of each colour I wear!

PERIPERA INK LASTING PINK CUSHION // #1 PINK IVORY



Cushions are another product I love from Peripera. Moderate coverage for a decent price. I've previously had the Mint Cushion, which had a yellow undertone to it and I knew the Ivory shade suited me well in the winter (I'm a ghost) so I went for the Ivory again (I'm Beige in the summer but I could have probably gotten away with the Sand shade at the peak of my tan) One thing I have been told about the Pink Cushion is that it has a slightly cooler undertone as the tones are pink. I feel like it's quite minimal and rather than being a full-on cool-toned base, it's more of a brightening one. The design of the cushion as a whole is adorable, the pink case combined with the stylised cushion puff is just all over gorgeous.

This cushions coverage I would say is medium, but you can build it up in areas that you feel you need to. I don't like wearing full coverage anyway as I feel it just looks too cakey on my skin. So this works well for me.


PERIPERA INK COLOR CARA // #8 PINK CHOCOLATE

I'm usually just a plain black mascara kind of person. Usually, because I mostly wear black eyeliner. However, the idea of a pink-tinted brown was intriguing to me so I had to grab one to give it a try. I had also heard some great things about Peripera's mascaras too.


I've honestly not used this as much as I would like to as I only wear it on days where I'm not wearing any eyeliner. However, I find the colour to be nice and subtle and the mascara itself helps add some length and a little volume to the lashes.


This whole range is absolutely beautiful, the packaging catches the eye so much and will allow for you beauty bloggers to get creative with your blog photos to fit in with it. Not only that, but the products perform extremely well. You all know how much I love my Peripera and will continue to keep purchasing their products. Have you tried this range? What are your favourite Peripera products or ones you would like to try the most?

Diving into the world of sheet masks can be an extremely daunting thing. There's so many that it can be hard to find where to actually begin. I've worked with Mask Time a few times to share with you their boxes, usually featuring about 10 or so sheet masks for you try out and treat your skin to. However, if you're not 100% sure on whether or not sheet masks are going to be your thing and don't know what brands you want to use, they also have smaller boxes containing 4-5 masks for you to begin your journey.

This box was sent to be my Mask Time. 

This box, in particular, was August's box, so with summer coming to an end, elements of summer remain in the mask to keep giving you that summer glow. The goal of the box is to give you masks that help treat acne, reduce pigmentation and moisturise the skin. So what are the four masks included?


A'pieu Icing Sweet Bar Sheet Mask // Watermelon

I've actually reviewed this mask before when I purchased it myself and its one that I absolutely love so was super happy to find it in this box! This mask in particular aims to exfoliate and promote the regeneration of skin cells while soothing and moisturising the skin, leaving you with that famous 촉촉 appearance! Plus it has that super strong scent of watermelon that I adore (plus you know I A D O R E A'pieu).


Dr. Plus Banana Milk Mask

Who else loves banana milkshake? I know I do, it's probably my second favourite next to white chocolate! This is one I'm excited to use as I love the scent of bananas and this mask hopes to help you with acne, moisture levels in the skin and if you're lucky enough to still have the sun with you to be able to cause sunburn (not here, that's for sure!) then this should hopefully be the one for you!


AooL Pore & Spot Care Mask


This is another mask that I have reviewed albeit more recently. Breakouts happen, usually due to hormones and some underlying skin conditions. Acne has been something I've suffered from since I was 9, while I have had treatment in the past through medication that took the bulk away, I still get hormonal breakouts and that's where this came in handy to help me reduce the redness of the spots that had decided to make an appearance. I mentioned in the review but AooL actually goes by ShionLe now (modelled by the boys of Astro!)




Proud Mary Cereal Pore Mask Pack

This the final box in our box is one that seems packed with a bunch of different benefits including anti-aging, skin texture improvement, tightening pores, skin cooling, balancing oils, bacteria fighting, wound healing and breakout preventing!! That's a lot of things this mask wants to do for you. So, here's hoping that it matches up to that when I get around to testing it out!



So this post is to simply introduce to you some of the masks that you can get from Mask Time in their Glow Starter box. Obviously, this changes each month but more often than not, you're able to still purchase the boxes at a later point in time while also purchasing them singularly if necessary. You can actually still purchase this exact box from Mask Time for £12.95 if these are the exact masks you want to give a try. Having tried half the box already I can vouch for their choices that they pop into the boxes and I'm always excited to see what combinations appear each time.

If you were to make your own box of masks for people to try, which ones would you put in and why?