Etude House - Another YouTube Beauty Tutorial Find

Etude House is one of South Korea's most popular cosmetics companies, with hundreds of standalone stores throughout Asia.  If you're a fan of South Korean popular culture, you may have seen one of their commercials (starring some of South Korea's top K-pop idols) or caught a quick glimpse of one of their shops in a video or blog somewhere online.  With their cute, pink, European-style decor, the shops are hard to miss.

And the best thing about the products is that they're super affordable!  Their prices are comparable to drugstore make-up prices (in the U.S., at least), averaging under or about $10 USD for most items.  The products are geared towards teenagers and young adults (hence the affordability and cute packaging), but the quality is pretty much on par with more expensive brands.

** Quick story - During an extended trip to South Korea a couple of years ago, I sent my mom a letter with some BB cream samples I got from one of my many trips to Etude House (ohmigod the SAMPLES!!!).  Let me take this moment to note that my mom is very particular about foundations and the like.  She doesn't like how most of them look or feel (no, thank you, orange bottle of Maybelline) and is convinced that the only ones that suit her are from expensive, Asian (usually Japanese) brands (Shiseido or die).  Anyway, she liked the sample so much, she had me buy her a full-sized bottle.  If Etude House has the stamp of approval from a picky Korean woman in her 70s, it's good enough for me.  End story. **

Anyway, Etude House has had a YouTube channel for ages now, offering various tutorials and tips for make-up and skin care trends popular in South Korea.  Aware of their growing global audience, they recently started adding English captions/subtitles to their videos.



Many of their videos aren't translated but are still pretty easy to follow along.



Where can you buy these products?  ...  Sigh.  That's the problem; unless you live in Asia, it won't be easy.  If you don't have a generous pen pal who lives in Korea, your only option is to order online.  Unfortunately, since Etude House doesn't do global orders at the moment, you'll have to try your luck with third-party sellers (in some cases, at exorbitant prices).

In regards to these tutorials, though, you don't necessarily need these particular products.  Improvise with what you've got or can get, and start creating these looks on your own!


UPDATE (11/4/14): Etude House now ships worldwide! Go to their global site and shop away!

So You Want to Cook Korean Food

As a Korean American, I find it heartening to see that Korean food is gaining popularity outside of the motherland - especially in the U.S. When I was a kid, I would feel embarrassed trying to describe what I had for dinner. It was a little difficult trying to jump into conversations about meatloaf or spaghetti when all I ever had in my arsenal were rice and banchan (bulgogi or "Korean barbecue" on a good day). It was even more difficult to have my friends over for dinner. A dinner table consisting only of rice and a bunch of vegetables (many of which are pickled or fermented) is rarely pleasing to the average American, let alone the average American kid.

"Cooking Korean Food with Maangchi" is one of my favorite Korean cooking blogs and YouTube channels. Run by a Korean woman who goes by the nickname of "Maangchi," the cooking videos consist of fun, step-by-step instructions on how to cook a variety of Korean dishes, from more popular dishes, like homemade kimchi and bulgogi, to more obscure or lesser known dishes, like hwajeon (sweet flower pancakes) or my personal summertime favorite, kong guksu (cold soy milk noodle soup). Maangchi has that "fun and exciting aunt" vibe, making her videos equally fun and exciting. If you dig deeper into her website and videos, you'll find fun little gems, like her trip around the world visiting and cooking with her YouTube fans.

If you have ever been curious about Korean food, or have wanted to try cooking it but thought it might be out of your league, try spending some time on Maangchi's YouTube channel or website (which also has a crowd-sourced list of Korean grocery stores around the world). You'll be a connoisseur of Korean food in no time!

Cold Soy Milk Noodle Soup


Kimchi

Jung Saem Mool - My Most Recent YouTube Beauty Tutorial Find

Even though I've been sorely neglecting this blog, I've still been keeping up with makeup and beauty blogs and YouTube channels. I have to admit that my obsession with makeup has relaxed in the last few years, but I still like to keep myself updated with all the new products and goings-on.

I first came across Jung Saem Mool's YouTube Channel through Eat Your Kimchi, a blog devoted to Korean popular culture (K-pop for the most part) and everyday life in South Korea. It wasn't long after I first discovered EYK's website and YouTube channel for myself that I spent an entire evening trying to watch all of their videos and happened to come across an interview they did with these wonderful makeup artists.

Jung Saem Mool is a professional makeup studio in South Korea, run by the makeup artist of the same name. She and her colleagues are makeup artists to most, if not all of the top South Korean celebrities and are responsible for creating many of the iconic looks of your favorite K-pop stars (assuming you're familiar with K-pop).

AND they post tutorials for these looks on their YouTube channel. This isn't a random YouTube beauty guru recreating a particular look for you (not that there's anything wrong with that). You are getting firsthand lessons from the artists who actually created these looks!

All of the videos have English subtitles (some of the older videos have the subtitles in the annotations, so make sure you turn those on) and are pretty easy to follow. Many of the celebrity makeup tutorials go right into the point or color makeup (eyeshadow, blush, lipstick, etc.). Base makeup (foundation, etc.) is a given in these videos, so keep that in mind. The tutorials range from makeup to hair styling to skin care, so they really give us a well-rounded lesson.

I have to warn you: what these women perform is magic, making these videos highly addictive. Granted, these women are professionals, so their skills are light-years ahead of most of ours. You may not have all the tools and makeup that they use to create these looks, but that doesn't mean there's nothing for us to take away here. Regardless of our own skill level and access to certain products, there is a lot that we can learn from watching these masters perform their art.

Jung Saem Mool and Eat Your Kimchi collaborated to recreate Lee Hyori's look for her "Bad Girls" music video.

Lee Hyori's Original Look from the Music Video


Base Makeup, Contouring, Cheeks and Lip


Eyes


Eyelashes