We love—and need—the hydration that rich moisturizers deliver, but often they come in thick formulations that leave a greasy residue or feel too heavy on the skin. This gel-cream hybrid is ultralight and moisturizes without the oil slick.
Belif The True Cream Aqua Bomb, $38
Sleeping masks (typically no-rinse hydrators worn overnight) are one of the biggest K-beauty crossover hits here in the states. But some of K-beauty's most daring ingredients (like starfish extract) can leave us feeling a bit squeamish.
Our skin drank up this peptide-rich formula, which has an almost gel-like consistency. We awoke to skin so hydrated, we nearly forgot that it's infused with 50% filtered snail mucus extract (eek!), which is thought to have skin-regenerative properties.
Mizon Snail Wrinkle Care Sleeping Pack, $26
Ginseng that has been aged for six years is the star ingredient in this serum, which aims to disrupt deep wrinkles. Its special encapsulated delivery system is designed to send active ingredients into deeper layers of the skin to help disrupt the aging process.
Sulwhasoo Capsulated Ginseng Fortifying Serum, $150
In South Korea, women are hell-bent on getting the look of poreless skin that's lit from within.
Women may appear to be bare skined, but many are actually donning the thinnest veil of BB or CC cream, dispensed with cushion compacts. These mesh cushions release just the right amount of makeup to camouflage imperfections without leaving cake-y after-effects.
Hera UV Mist Cushion Compact, $45
Why should our faces have all the fun? This mask for the feet contains some heavy-hitting skin care ingredients, like glycolic acid and lactic acid. What looks like maternity ward slippers on our feet and after allowing the liquid inside to soak our tired soles for an hour, our feet became so soft, they slipped out of our stilettos the following day. The treatment is also formulated to cause rough patches of skin to flake away within the week.
Mizon Magic Peeling Foot Mask, $12
Sleeping masks are often created as ultra-thick creams to help seal moisture into the skin while we sleep. On hot and muggy nights (when we want a thick cream to the face like a bullet to the head), a few drops of this concentrated hydrating treatment helps tackle the same tasks without making our skin feel greasy.
Mizon Night Repair Seruming Ampule, $38
LipNicure sounded like a nutty name until we swiped this striking color across our lips and saw just how perfectly it painted them—with major pigment payoff, just like a manicure.
Also great? Its no-budge wear and velvet-meets-matte finish. (Just be sure to apply the shade to amply-hydrated lips, as the slightly-drying formula can enunciate cracks.)
Clio LipNicure, $26
The cushion concept—which dispenses makeup through mesh and sponge filters for the lightest of applications—doesn't end with BB creams.
After tapping this click-pen cushion concealer below eyes and to highlight the browbone and cupid's bow, it looked as if we weren't wearing makeup at all and had racked up nine hours of sleep during the previous night, thanks to hydrating ingredients. Bonus: the formula contains SPF 30 protection, too.
Laneige Watery Cushion Concealer, $20
Considered the eighth wonder of the world by in-the-know liquid liner aficionados, this inky pen is equipped to draw one of the finest, most precise lines possible (which made us look like total pros when cat-ifying our eye). Even better, after a 16-hour day, the smudgable, waterproof formula remained exactly where we had applied it. We're complete converts.
Clio Waterproof Pen Liner, $20
Think of an essence as a toner-serum hybrid, which can help hydrate or balance the skin's pH while delivering a shot of antioxidants.
This version (a go-to product for Michelle Phan) is geared to nourish skin with calcium and magnesium-packed mineral water.
Cremorlab Mineral Treatment Essence, $42
Don't be fooled by this face mist's preschool-friendly packaging. Like many playful, cartoon-covered K-beauty products, it delivers very adult skin care benefits.
Reach for the adorably bottled TonyMoly Pocket Bunny Moist Mist, which is available as part of a curated box of Korean beauty products, to help set makeup or give skin a hit of hydration.
Memebox Korean Beauty Starter Kit, $72