Goutal and Glass Skin

Glass-smooth and slightly dewy.

Six months after surgery, my sense of smell continues to come back in fits and starts.  I’ll go through a day or three of quasi-anosmia, especially with perfume, and then suddenly – the scent is back, or at least most of it.  The episodes of what I’m calling “meat-sweat,” the phantom scent my nose (brain?) sends to annoy me, have diminished.  I can’t smell all of the perfume all of the time, and some of my beloveds are still in the try-again-later pile, but I’m starting to think it might all be okay if I’m patient.

Anyhow, for whatever reason, right now I can really smell my Annick Goutal scents, and it’s a chilly late spring/early summer, so I’ve been wearing a lot of Gardenia Passion (when it’s cooler) and Eau du Sud (when it’s warmer.)  Sud was my gateway drug back in the day when everyone else wore Hadrien, which never quite worked on me.  Eau du Sud is, to me, quintessential vintage AG – a little oddball, pretty but not sweet, sharp and green with its boldly herbaceous citrus.  Makes me smile every time.

Since I don’t trust my nose to give a new scent a fair shake, today’s topic is Korean facial care and the much coveted “glass skin” look (poreless, smooth, radiant, dewy.)  I’m a little late to the K-beauty revolution, but I decided to give it a whirl a few weeks ago (hey, I have to throw my fun money at something!)  And glass skin is a much more achievable goal for me than the omnipresent matte look.  I’m too old and too pale to be piling on Kardashian levels of foundation; I don’t even particularly like that much makeup on young women.  All I can think of when I look at some of the MAC counter SAs is the terrible things all that contour and strobing and whatnot is doing to the skin they’ve spackled over.

You can buy high-end K-beauty lines, but in the Korean skincare game most stuff is cheaper (and more fun!) than its American counterparts.  There’s the 10 steps, including the “seven-skin” method (seven layers of hydrating toner) —and that’s just one step.  I mean, sure, you could drive yourself nuts.  Or you could just do what I did and buy yourself a few products based on a weighted combo of online reviews and cute packaging, and not fret about the details.  Korean product has a lot of gentle botanicals and moisture, and even my sensitive skin has been fine with the new multi-product regimen.

After almost a month, here’s my conclusion:  if you do the Korean double-cleansing / gentle exfoliation / deep hydrating routine even somewhat consistently, your skin’s going to look better, unless your game was already pretty strong.  The routine actually has me getting ready for bed earlier these days, because I have incentive to put on a girly peignoir and get started with all my little pink frosted bottles of serums and emulsions and other goo.  I do see a significant difference, particularly my pores, which are way less visible.  And it’s not like I didn’t wash my face before; it’s just that I wasn’t anywhere near as thorough with the cleansing and hydrating. Considering that I wear zinc sunscreen (a bear to remove), the gentle thoroughness is really paying off.  My skin absolutely glows. Even friends and coworkers have commented on it.  They want to know what that radiant foundation or glow cream is, and it’s pretty cool to be able to tell them, nope, that’s just my skin.

Do any of you have a K-beauty regimen?  Did you notice a difference?  And is House Goutal (or whatever it’s called now) ever going to release another scent worthy of my attention?  We’re overdue for something quirky and pungeant, if you ask me.