The destination might be exciting, but it’s not that fun sitting through a 7+ hour flight once you're stewing in your seat. You're jetlagged from the time-difference, your skin gets dehydrated from the dry cabin air, and you feel tired and cramped because let's face it - those chairs in Economy aren't designed with your beauty sleep in mind. It's a challenge to somehow look and feel anything but shitty when you disembark but it's not impossible! Here are six tips to help you and your skin survive that long-haul flight!

Skincare can be a bit daunting with all this talk about 10-step routines, but the truth is no one ever starts with 10 steps. A good routine starts with only a handful of products and the most basic of steps until you work your way up to figuring out your skin's individual needs. Only then do skin-specific steps like serums, ampoules, and acids come in.

It helps to figure out your skin type first. The four basic skin types that pertain to sebum production are normal, dry, oily, and combination.

Pinays used to steer clear of applying any kind of oil on their faces. With the often hot and sticky weather plus oily skin being a common beauty concern, using facial oils didn't really make much sense! As more beauty gurus started including oils in their skincare routines and mixing them with their foundations though, that perception has definitely shifted to seeing oils in a more favorable light.

Despite my obsession with skincare, I've only had two actual facial treatments (complete with pricking) in my entire life. The first time was way back in high school, before I had any appreciation for the kind of effort you actually need to make for achieving and maintaining good skin. It was pricey for my student budget and I didn't see any improvements after, so I didn't feel encouraged to try it again.

Recently though, I was invited by O2 Laser Skin Center to try out their signature service: a Korean Facial Therapy! As images of Korean actors and pop stars flooded my head, I wondered how different the procedure would be from the usual treatments you can get at mall facial centers. Would it give me that coveted chok chok complexion?

New skincare and makeup brands coming to the country are always big and exciting news here on Project Vanity. K-beauty brands in particular are unique and trending, thanks to their often cute packaging and never-before-heard-of special ingredients.

Stealthily going under our beauty radar is Korean brand, Deoproce. They've actually been available in SM Beauty and in select Watsons outlets for some time now, and is actually a brand under the Samsung Group! The brand name is a combination of "deo" for development, "pro" for professional, "c" for cosmetics, and "e" for energy.

I don't buy that many beauty things anymore due to the nature of my job. I get to try products for free plus I research thoroughly before dropping the dough on something I like! I often know what I want and what to avoid so I don't make that many mistakes when I finally commit to a purchase. Chalk it up to nine years of trying out hundreds upon hundreds of beauty products - I have high standards, but I also understand that what works for you might not work for me and vice versa.

The word "retinoid" is casually thrown around these days when it comes to acne treatment. This is a pretty potent ingredient though, so I put my pharma training to good use and did quite a bit of reading on what retinoids are and how they work. If you've been thinking of adding them to your routine, read this lowdown before you commit!

I used to have a nonchalant attitude towards buying makeup and skincare. I didn’t care much about what’s in a product so long as people talked about it. I’d buy something on sale because it’s from a known brand and it looked pretty, and worse, I tried anything that the Internet said would work on my acne-prone skin. I DIY-ed the heck out of treatments that more often than not worked horribly. All this because I didn’t make time to talk to my skin and ask “What do you need?”

At that time, it seemed silly but doing so could’ve saved me my money and my skin. Makeup and skincare, I realized, does not carry the “one size fits all” tag.

When it comes to achieving chok chok skin, we've gotten used to expecting Korean beauty products to be the answer. It's not so surprising as K-beauty offers a lot of great picks, but the Japanese are actually the original skincare pros! LuLuLun in particular has been making waves as Japan's favorite sheet mask brand. It consistently receives beauty awards and has sold over 300 million masks since it first launched in 2011.

Considering that most of our fave sheet masks are from Korea and are single use, we were excited by the idea of masking everyday for an entire week. We received two variants to road test: the Classic Moisturizing Face Mask and the Moisture-Enrich Face Mask.

Masking has become a habit - okay, an obsession - of mine in the last couple of years. It's the most effective way to jolt my skin back to life, after I've abused it with stress, poor diet, and unwise skincare choices! This is why I have so many different masks (mud, sheet, leave-on, you name it) stocked up in my shelf. I've got masks for acne, dry skin, tired skin, or just generally unhappy-with-the-world skin because one never knows when disaster will strike.

Even among people with similar skin conditions and concerns, building a good regimen is largely a personal process. Finding the right product for your needs can feel very overwhelming because of the sheer number of options available. That's why it's wise to look for products that are properly formulated to be gentle on the skin. If the Kiehl’s Calendula line’s everlasting popularity is any indication, this TLC approach to skin care definitely works for the long haul!

If you have oily skin like me, you’d probably think that putting on a face oil is counterintuitive. I certainly felt that way until Liz gave us samples of the In Her Element First Wash Cleansing Oil in its testing stages. It was the first time I'd ever knowingly and willingly applied any kind of oil to my face and something just...clicked. I discovered how easy, effective, and non-abrasive oil cleansing is. Now, I don't need to struggle removing my HG mascara (Heroine Make's Volume and Curl) every night!

Do you make it a habit to read the label before deciding to buy product? It’s definitely a good idea to do so (even if it’s in Korean!) because you should always check for manufacturing and expiry dates to help ensure that the product is still safe to use. There also ingredients you should look out for because of their high potential as skin irritants, or because they help back up a product’s claims of being effective at treating acne or preventing skin aging.