I went to SEOUL for a K-Beauty GLOW UP! 🇰🇷 Worth it?!

Seoul has become one of the beauty capitals of the world with people traveling here for the latest in treatments and trends and today I'm one of them. I am here for a full Korean glow up you guys. I'm gonna take you with me as I put a range of things to the test and then later I'm gonna share the results, the cost and whether or not it was even worth it. Let's get started. Okay today is a massive day for me because I'm doing something I have always wanted to do. I am getting a personal color analysis. Now they are all the rage here in Korea and what they're going to do is take me through a set of different colors and color seasons and they're gonna work out which one looks good on me and which one looks terrible. Now I have no idea which one I am. I mean I think I know what colors I look okay in. I'm a very simple person. I wear four colors, black, white, blue and pink and that's really it. Occasionally green. I'd be shocked if they said orange was a winner for me. I never wear orange. Now my fear here you guys, they say I can't wear pink ever again and then I find out that I've been dressing myself wrong my entire life and if that's true well we're in Myeongdong so I'm just gonna throw out my entire suitcase and start again. Now Myeongdong is unbelievably busy and I think the place we're going to is down this street here somewhere. Let's go find it and do this thing. I'm more nervous for this than I was for the skydive the other week. Okay so right off the bat I'm in my own private room. There are some clothes here. I wonder if I'm gonna get styled at some point. There are all the different color swatches here. There's also more color swatches over there, patterns and things. I have a quiz I have to do, a little quiznos. Okay so the whole process starts with removing my makeup so they can get the most accurate read of my natural skin tone. Then we begin with the big question. Am I warm toned or cool toned? They're comparing different colors against my skin looking at how each one affects my complexion and much to my surprise we have very quickly discovered that I'm actually cool toned which is so helpful to know makeup wise. Now from there we start narrowing things down even further. We're testing different shades and basically figuring out which colors make me look my best and which ones absolutely do not and there is one very clear winner. It's pink! Ah thank goodness because I love wearing pink. It is my favorite color and then on the other end of the spectrum we have the autumn tones which as you can clearly see are doing absolutely nothing for me. I look so foul. All right once we've narrowed everything down they're showing me my full range of best colors and I am so happy right now because they're basically all the colors I love to wear and gravitate towards anyway but this doesn't just stop with clothing. They are actually going through my makeup bag with me checking the products and shades I already own and showing me the ones that work with my coloring and what I should probably stop wearing which is so helpful. Now at the end I'm given this incredibly comprehensive report. It's breaking down all of my best colors makeup shades and jewelry and then I go to the special room where I actually get to play around with some of those recommendations and see the difference for myself. The whole thing takes about an hour an hour and a half and I just can't get over how thorough it is. Okay that was interesting and kind of fun. We'll talk more a little bit later about my results how much it cost and if it was even worth it but right now we're in Myeongdong so let's go explore the Korean pharmacy and see what skincare products we can get our hands on to try. Oh wow there's so much cool stuff in here. I keep seeing this everywhere. The problem with this is like I can buy these and we can try them but I'm not really gonna know for a little while if this works to be able to recommend it for you. If you have like breakouts and stuff I think this brand is really good. Like these here and I've heard this is good too. Like you just put this stuff on the back of your hand and you hope for the best but I asked for something for eye bags and dark circles. Allegedly this. I might get one of each of these and then try it and if I like it I'll just come back and stock up before I leave Korea. This. What does it do? I don't know but I feel like I saw this. Here we go. Elasticity pore soothing brightening dark spots. This sounds like me. All right with my color analysis done and a beauty bag full of new products to put to the test it's time to kick things up a notch at one of Seoul's notorious beauty clinics and I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little or a lot nervous right now. Okay I'm inside the clinic. It's really beautiful in here. It's very ethereal and elegant and it looks classy to me. I don't feel like I'm in a chop shop. Great start. I just have to fill out this form and then consultation I guess. So I've done the skin analysis in the machine. It's taken photos of my face and a bunch of different lights. I think I feel better seeing the place now. Like it's not a chop shop. It's very professional. They're moving quickly but not like at an alarming pace where it's like just get in this room and shoot a laser at you. I just finished my consultation and I feel so much more happy and confident now than I did coming in. I think our amazing practitioner Nami is a huge part of that. She is incredible. So knowledgeable and so thorough. She didn't rush me. I could ask as many questions as I wanted. She speaks English fluently. There's nothing lost in translation. Just soothing my anxious mind So we went through and she went through all the treatments that she would recommend for me and what I loved was that there were some that I had heard of that she was like no we're not. That's not for you. That's not going to work and this is why. So I didn't feel like too much was being pushed on me or sold onto me. Love that. We hit the waiting room and then we're doing this thing. All right after my consult we've decided on four different treatments and they're all focused on improving my skin rather than changing the way I look which is exactly what I asked for. Now we're tackling some of my biggest skin concerns. They are fine lines, hydration, glow and an overall youthful appearance and apparently by the end of this I should be looking a whole lot glowier. The only problem is I'm terrified of the pain level of some of these. Please help me. All right first up is the Aqua Peel for deep cleansing, exfoliation and hydration. Next up is the Maje using radiofrequency to tighten smooth and contour the skin by stimulating new collagen production. Now I couldn't film this while it was happening but you guys this one was horrific. It had me in literal tears. All right we're doing the RE20 Skin Booster now and again I wasn't allowed to film the actual process but this one is meant to refine pores and texture, improve elasticity and firmness, soften fine lines and enhance radiance. I love all of that. Okay and lastly we're doing LDM Aftercare. Now this is a really lovely treatment that locks in deep hydration, soothes inflammation, protects from UV damage and repairs the skin barrier and is the perfect soothing ending to this. While we wait for the results of my skin treatments to settle in, it's time to tackle the last piece of this k-beauty puzzle you guys. My hair. Good morning guys from Hongdae. What is going on with my hair right now? It looks absolutely terrible. I haven't been to the hairdresser since February. Yes that's right, I only go to the hairdresser but once a year. I'm really bad at it. Why? I don't like getting my hair done. It just takes too long. I have a lot of hair. It's very thick. It's just time consuming. I also believe in just letting my hair do its own thing. It works for me. It's healthier. It's happier. We both are. Love you. Now to get this situation sorted, I'm heading to a spot called Soonsiki which is right behind me. Now this place is really really popular here in Korea. All the research that I did, everybody says to go here. Now I am getting a hair cut and some kind of a magical scalp treatment in there today. Now the keen observers among you may just have noticed that I said hair cut and not hair color. That's because I have some trust issues with my hair. I've had some horror experiences. There are only three people on this planet I trust to color my hair. None of them are in Seoul at the moment. In terms of the cut though, I don't want to lose any length. I'm in a phase. I'm growing it super long. That's what I want. So I'm going to fight her on that. But I do want it to have more layers and texture because I like to curl it as you guys know. I like those curls to sit at different lengths and give me volume. So we're going to achieve that. The salon is so cute. I love how colorful it is in here. Nice vibes. And I was a little unsure about the language barrier because I don't speak Korean but the girls here speak great English so. I love days like this. Like just hanging with the girls. You know what I mean? It's just lovely energy. All right so we're heading over to the basin to start with a thorough wash and then we're into the scalp treatment using all very high quality Grastus products. This feels so good right now. Then we're over here to the chair for the cut and I will not lie the nerves are really kicking in right now. But we're about to find out if all of this has been worth it. With the big Bebe's K-beauty glow up reveal in three, two, one. This is the final result. What do you guys think? Do I look like I've had a glow up? You'll have to let me know in the comments below. Now it has been about two weeks since I was in Seoul so I have had a lot of time for everything to settle in and I have some very strong opinions about what was worth it, what wasn't, what to avoid and importantly how much everything cost. So let's get into it. Okay now let's start with the hair because that is where we left off. So Sensiki they decided to give me some long layers and I'm really happy with that. When I arrived at the salon they took me through everything and they suggested long layers and that's what I would have asked for anyway. What I love about it is how much volume there is in my hair when I curl it. I absolutely love that. I felt like the whole experience in the salon was awesome. It's a really cool space. They make you feel so welcome. It doesn't feel like you're in some futuristic German nightclub. It's just really warm and really welcoming which I enjoyed. Now in addition to the long layers haircut I also got the scalp treatment. I enjoyed the pampering of it but I haven't noticed any kind of significant difference and if you are on a budget that is definitely something that you could leave off. It was just fun for me to do. Now I felt like the salon was very foreign friendly as well and I felt like the girls really went out of their way to smile at you and just make you feel at ease while you were there. I thought the communication was really good. They went through everything in great detail and I felt very comfortable you know speaking up and asking questions and saying what I did and didn't want and all of that came across easily and beautifully. Now in terms of the cost it was around 106 Australian dollars for the haircut which included a blow-dry and style at the end and the scalp treatment and I think that is incredible value. If I was going back to Seoul I would definitely go back to Sunsiki. The only thing I felt was a bit funny was the booking process was a bit tricky because it was using a platform I haven't used before, Naver. But after I booked on Naver I wasn't sure if my booking had gone through. I DM'd the girls on Instagram. They said yes you're all confirmed and everything was fine so worked out great. I'll have a link in the video description for you and the name of my stylist so you can go and see her and if you want you can show her this video or a photo and say I want that and she will know exactly what to do. She was amazing. Now you may also be noticing that the color of my hair is slightly different. Maybe you do, maybe you don't. So I got my hair colored here in Singapore. I go to a salon called Love Hair. They're fantastic. We just worked with my natural color, threw in some highlights throughout and I used my color analysis which I'll talk about more in a second to ask for more of a creamy kind of a look. A cool toned creamy blonde. Nothing yellow, nothing like that. So yeah we just did that and then we toned through here dark and then through the rest light so it was kind of a balayage style and I'm so happy with it. It just feels brighter and more summery around the face and combined with the haircut. I just couldn't be happier. I'm so happy with my hair. Next up was the color analysis. Now you may recall I was a light summer and I'm so happy with that outcome for me because my whole suitcase is pink, blue, white and black and those are colors that I should be wearing. Nothing better than them saying your favorite color is one of your colors, right? Now I think the biggest thing for me to come out of it was just confidence. Absolutely that my wardrobe and the choices I'm making around what I wear are correct. I don't like to wear anything that overpowers me and there are a lot of colors I avoid naturally. I just feel so validated knowing that that was right. The second thing to come out of it was makeup. That has been huge for me. I was watching the footage from when I come out of the color analysis and I was like woof. Like I think the ideas were right but those actual products were not the right fit for my skin. I felt like the lip was way too dark. So I took all of that knowledge though and applied it to products that I like and things that work to my skin and I am so so happy with it. I've got a lighter foundation. It's a lot more glowy. I've stopped wearing bronzer altogether and just doing a Westman Atelier cream contour, a pink blush, my mascaras and powder. That's it and I love it. When I look at myself in the mirror, when I look at myself on camera, I just feel like I look so much brighter and more natural and more me and I love it. I just am so happy with that. One thing I won't be doing that they said was to avoid wearing gold. Can't tell me what to do babes. I'll do what I like. I'm a rebel. I like to mix metals. I want to wear silver, rose gold and gold all at once and that's what I'm gonna be doing. I thought the salon experience, the color analysis again was fantastic. It was so foreigner friendly. We had the translator there with us. English the whole time. It was just fantastic. Really well organized. I booked that one through Klook. I'll have the link in the video description for you so you can click through and book as well. It was around 130 Australian dollars. I'm not trying to say that it's like budget friendly but I think for what you get out of it, you know, you have all this takeaway stuff as well. I just think it's worth it for the amount of time and how thorough they are and what you get out of it and how you can take that into your everyday life. Yeah, really enjoyed it. Really recommend. Okay and now let's get into the big one, the skin treatments and we're gonna start by looking at some footage of my bare face because there is no way possible that we can judge this based off a face full of makeup. So here you go, have a good look at that. I'd love to know if you think you can see a difference in the before and the after and obviously acknowledging that these are filmed in different places. One is on the street in Korea and one is here in Singapore where I have access to great natural lighting. I'll be really honest with you, for me looking at myself in the mirror, I see a huge difference. I think my skin looks so much better and I think that's the treatments that I had done and also the k-beauty products that I picked up while I was there and we'll get into those in a second. Let's go through what I had done, how much it cost, how much it hurt and whether or not I'd do it again. First up was the aqua peel. This was just to clear out the sebum. Think of it as like a hydrating facial. It was a zero out of ten on the pain scale and it cost 10,890 Korean won. I think it was a really great place to start. My skin felt bright and fresh afterwards. Recommend. Okay next up, the RE20 Skin Booster 6cc full face. This was 407,000 Korean won. The pain scale was about a five or six out of ten with the full face of numbing cream and we did the hand injection. Now this was just about glowy, hydration, collagen, anti-aging, just everything. This was just a coverall. So so happy with it. My skin is glowing, it feels amazing. The little bumps went down overnight. I just had a little bit of light bruising. This is a treatment that needs to be done every six months. I will be getting it done every six months. Love. Next up, the Devil's Laser Thermage RF Lifting 300 shots under eye. This is double chin on here. I don't have a double chin. Under eye to double chin and jawline. This was 1,000,000 won. 1,000,000 won. 1,089,000 Korean won. It's a lot of money but it's incredibly well priced for what it is. I will say this to you, pain scale is a million out of ten. It feels like you are being stabbed in the face by a lightning bolt that is attached to a nuclear reactor that is being held by the devil himself. I was in tears. It was horrific. I wanted to die. It was bad. The results last for a year and I will be getting it done again. This one was all about lifting and tightening and freshening and collagen and I just feel it's exactly what it's done for this part of my face and I'm so happy with it. Now importantly, none of these treatments were designed to change the shape of my face and I'm very happy with that. My goal going in was just to look like the healthiest, happiest, hydrated version of me and babes, I do. I'm so happy with it. We also did an LDM aftercare treatment which was 31,000 Korean won. I don't know if it helped or not. I hope it did because I recovered quite quickly. Now in terms of the actual clinic, I felt like the clinic itself was absolutely beautiful. It was very, to me, it looked just very clean and professional. Our guide, Nami, she was fantastic. She never made me feel rushed or like she's trying to oversell me. She explained everything thoroughly. I told her what I wanted and everything she recommended aligned with that. The one thing we didn't do, I'm glad we didn't do, we didn't do pico laser and I said she recommended it for my melasma and I said I don't want to do that because I can't keep up with going every two weeks and instead I went to the Korean pharmacy and I got this melatonin hydroquinone and guys, it's working a treat. So save your money on the laser, don't worry about that. And I used that morning and night for a couple of months and that combined my sunscreen. Sorted. And then we'll just do a quick rapid fire of Korean pharmacy beauty products that I picked up that I love. I've been using this CPR collagen peptides retinol. Loving that, that's great at night. I've been using the Dr. Jart ceramide and skin barrier moisture cream and loving that. And this one is like the big one. If you only take one thing away from this whole video, get this. It's the medica cream. Time reverse. Put this on morning and night, it is an absolute dream. If there's one thing to avoid, it is the Dr. Melaxin eye felt cream. This is a gimmick I think. You put it on and like your wrinkles disappear and your under eyes are bright but if you try to put makeup on it, it pills and it looks like trash and then it wears off anyway. So absolute joke, wouldn't, wouldn't bother with that. But was it worth it going all the way to Korea for a glow up? Yeah, absolutely. I think if nothing else, I just feel really beautiful and confident and happy and that means the world to me. I'm not giving you medical advice or telling you you should definitely get these things done. That is up to you and your medical professional to decide. But for me, I'm really happy with all of the decisions I made. I just feel really good. I just feel really confident and really happy and I achieved what I wanted to achieve. You know, especially with my skin feeling so healthy and happy and glowy and hydrated and I still look exactly like me and I feel like me and that's really important to me. So yeah, Korea is a great place to go for a glow up. I think it's so affordable to get all of these things done. You just can't get access to that quality of treatment at that kind of price point outside of Korea. Let me know what you think in the comments below. If you would go to Korea for a glow up, if you wouldn't, if you have, tell us what you recommend, what you've gotten done that you don't recommend. Give us the good, the bad, the ugly, everything in between. We would love to know. Spill the tea, tell us everything. All right, you guys, and with that, that brings this week's episode to a close. I really hope you've enjoyed it. Now, if you don't already, be sure to subscribe right now so you never miss a single episode and say hello in the comments below. I hope you have a great weekend and I will see you with a brand new episode next week. Love ya.