The Cost of a Year's Worth of Skincare

I overhauled, by which I mean significantly expanded, my skincare routine this past year after suddenly and rapidly becoming obsessed with learning about the Korean Skincare Routine. I have never had great skin, and had stuck with the same routine for years although it never quite worked for me, leaving me with patches of dry, peeling skin in the winter and with fairly frequent breakouts that would leave dark spots after the acne healed. Now that I have settled on a new routine that works fairly well for me, I have stopped buying new products and revisiting the Asian Beauty subreddit quite as often. Particularly as I am trying to be more thoughtful about my expenditures for the next year, I thought it would be useful to lay out how much my routine actually costs. (Note that this is not what I actually spent this year. I only really started building this routine in March, and ended up buying a good handful of other extra products that did not end up making it into my routine.) 

I am perhaps a bit surprised at how high the ultimate total is ($944.44 with all items at full price, and $807.24 when taking into account Missha's frequent generous promotions). However, I don't think my basic routine requires paring down for financial or budget reasons either. I use drugstore-range products most of the time (the Cerave, Cetaphil, and Vanicream, and the Biore and Hada Labo are drugstore items in Asia). Although many of my other products are fairly expensive, I use them because they work for me. In most instances, I have either done some research and determined that there wasn't a significantly cheaper alternative or personally tried both more and less expensive alternatives that did not work as well.

*indicates a product that goes on sale frequently, which should therefore not be purchased at full price (and in the case of Missha products, the discount is often 40% off or close to it) though I still used the full price for the purposes of this exercise 

Morning and Evening (Total: $420.21)

• Cerave Foaming Cleanser - 1.5 bottles/year - $11.49/bottle - $17.24/year
• Missha First Treatment Essence - 3 bottles/year - $49.00/bottle* - $147.00/year
• Hada Labo Lotion - 3 bottles/year - $19.99/bottle - $59.97/year 
• Missha Time Revolution Night Repair Ampoule - 4 bottles/year - 49.00/bottle* - $196.00/year

Morning Only (Total: $254.95) 

• Paula's Choice 2% BHA Liquid - 2 bottles/year - $26.00/bottle - $52.00/year 
• Paula's Choice Resist C15 Super Booster - 2.5 bottles/year - $48.00/bottle - $120.00/year
• (Prescription) Clindamycin in Cetaphil Moisturizer - 4 bottles /year - $5.00/bottle - $20.00/year
• Biore UV Perfect Face Milk Suncreen - 5 bottles a year - ~$12.59/bottle - $62.95/year 

Evening Only (Total: $269.28)

• Cleansing Oil - 1 bottle/year - ~18.00/bottle* - $18.00/year
• (Prescription) Trentinoin - 2 tubes/year - $15.00/tube - $30.00/year
• Antioxidant Serum - 2 tubes/year - $34.00/tube - $68.00/year
• Boscia Tsubaki Beauty Oil - 1 bottle/year - $46.00/bottle - $46.00/year 
• Vanicream Moisturizer - 2 bottles/year - $13.49/bottle - $26.98/year 
• Neem Oil - 0.5 bottle/year - $7.09/bottle - $3.55/year
• Mario Badescu Buffering Lotion - 0.5 bottle/year - $19.00/bottle - $9.50/year
• Sheet Masks - 5 boxes or 50 sheets/year - $13.45/box - $67.25/year

Total: $944.44

Total (with 40% off sale price on Missha Items): $807.24

I will likely write about my morning and evening skincare routines in quite some detail at a later date. Suffice to say, not everyone believes in or benefits from having such an extensive skincare routine. In terms of learning about skincare, I highly recommend Kerry's blog, Skin and Tonics. Most of the products that I have ever tried on Kerry's recommendation have been fantastic.

I am a particular fan of Paula's Choice, especially the 2% BHA liquid, which I think has done the lion's share of the work in significantly reducing my acne. Should anyone happen to be inspired to try Paula's Choice, I have a referral link which would net you a $10.00 discount on your order if you are a new customer (as well as net me a $10.00 credit).