white tea & plum roses

I haven't hauled anything in so long... Concert tickets are expensive and I've been trying to use up what skincare I already have. But with the free time at work, I've lurking the Asian Beauty sub-reddit and reading a lot. After seeing so many opinions and general liking of "BAE" I decided to do an order with them. I can say I wasn't disappointed.

I picked up a few items for an impression haul, chose some well raved products and some that I was just curious about. I received this package in June but never got the chance to finish writing a post, it's late and I already got another Jolse haul but better late than never, right?

You get free standard shipping and tracking for orders over $40USD, which is pretty nice. If you wanted tracking without being on the price tier, it's only $2.50 for tracking itself. My order took about 2 days to be processed and shipped, and another 2 weeks to arrive. In terms of speed, it was right on time, 10 business days.

I got a haul in between the $75 and $100 mark to try out their samples variety since you get to choose a free full sized gift at the $100 tier. They gave a pretty decent variety of samples from make-up to skincare and included a sheet mask ($50 tier) and a scrub glove (not shown; $70 tier). Since it was my first time hauling from them, I expected to be impressed this much; second haul, that's another post. Didn't know TonyMoly had packets for hand cream samples though, interesting.


There were some leakage horror stories I've read about certain products but all my products came in perfect condition and beautifully bubble wrapped. They also markdown the customs sheet by a lot, I mean, quite a lot and checks them off as gifts. My order was over $70, but they marked it down to $7. The package passed customs safely and freely into my hands.

In terms of variety in brands that Jolse offers, you'll definitely be able to find the usual suspects like Skin Food, Etude House, Innisfree, Nature Republic, Missha, and all that other jazz. Products are updated pretty frequently so you won't miss out on trying the newest products hot of the press from Korea. There's also always something in the 1+1 section and often there are sales and discounts. The pricing for the products aren't too bad either, if not for the conversion rates.

If you like samples and free shipping, I recommend giving Jolse a try.

Here's the lineup of this time's haul:

• OST C20 Serum
• the SAEM Ubran Eco Harakeke Essence
• the SAEM Cover Perfect Tip Concealer
• CosRX Natural BHA Skin Returning Emulsion
• CosRX AHA Whitehead Power Liquid

Initially, I was looking for an emulsion for my acne-prone sister and heard good things about actives. I have never had an actual active step in my skincare before so I thought it'd be good to try and compare.

Picked up two CosRX products, both with or is an active itself. I chose to go with the BHA Emulsion first to ease my skin into using an active, I'm not ready for the purging to happen with the full BHA Blackhead Liquid. I still purged a bit, not a bit, but not a lot. It might've happened slower since it supposedly has a lower concentrate of BHA than the Blackhead Liquid. At first I started at night only, then I switched to morning only, I've also tried both day and night. I tried this in a span of a month, but I found it to be best used in the morning, since I did AHA every three days in the evening. Using the BHA emulsion day and night started to over-exfoliate me so I slowed down the routine again recently.

I'll probably hand over the emulsion to my sister now that's I've got my skin used to everything and I'll purchase the BHA Blackhead Liquid in a new haul sometime later.

My the SAEM Harakeke Essence was to mainly to replace my TFS Smim Dew Fermentation Moisturizing Essence which I reluctantly finished. It was a really nice serum but it didn't do enough for me to justify buying it in full price (I got it on discount). I'm liking the Harakeke Essence right now, although I think my skin was a bit sensitive to something when I first tried it.

I got the Cover Perfect Tip Concealer as well since it was quite popular among certain beauty bloggers. It's not bad but it definitely oxidizes and does become dry through the day. I got it in shade 1.5, which works well for my dark circles but not that well for the rest of my face. It's just a slight shade darker so I might look at buying shade 1 in the future. This concealer also has SPF 28, PA++ for those interested.

I haven't used my C20 yet since I just started on the acids, I've been meaning to try it sometime, so maybe this week. It's just been fitting comfy in my fridge for the past while, I think my skin's calmed enough to finally start.

Finding time to write these days isn't hard but the motivation to write is floating around somewhere. I guess I also haven't been buying much either in the past couple of months, so there's that. Most of my money these days have been going to upcoming concerts and events. I, for some reason or other, splurged to see Bangtan in September... and of course, that BIGBANG concert this coming October wasn't cheap.

Summer is a blackhole for money.