How do my pores look?
Very good, yeah very good, yeah very good.
Hey everyone, it's NPR Asia correspondent,
Elise Hu, makeup free today with my friend,
Joyce Kong.
She is a beauty consultant here in Seoul and
the reason why I don't have anything on my
face is because we are going to try something
called pore vacuuming.
They want our shoes off? Ok.
Most likely.
All right, it's Korea so we're going to take
our shoes off.
Oh wow, do I really need to be under the blanket,
it's kind of warm.
So, it's operating off this ying and yang
type of thing.
So your body is supposed to kind of heat up
and it's supposed to push
all the toxins out of your skin.
I think I'm too long for this.
Skin care in South Korea is serious business,
with South Korean women spending twice as
much of their income on beauty products as
American women.
With more women entering the highly competitive
and image conscious South Korean workforce
demand for new products is up.
One of the most popular - pore vacuuming.
Just like a home vacuum cleaner the process
uses suction to pull pore gunk, sebum and
blackheads straight out of your face.
It's pretty painless, but is exactly as gross
as you'd think.
So you can think of it as step 1 is removing
everything on your face, getting it to be
as clean as possible, and step 2 they can
really go in for the excavation.
Oh yeah, I think she's getting my nose pores.
Mmhmm.
Oh geez, you can hear it.
Oh, dear.
Oh geez.
I can actually feel stuff being sucked up.
This is gross.
I can't really see because there cotton in
front of my eyes, but something is happening.
All right folks, so this is called white tanning,
here in Korea.
There's actually no tanning involved in this
red light therapy said to stimulate collagen
production and even out skin tone.
South Korea prides milky whiteness of skin
due to some lingering historical notions that
dark skin is tied to being working class, and
the pressure to be super white is still intense.
They believe having a whiter canvass better
showcases your pampered skin.
So, this is known as a rubber mask, and it
basically seals in the benefits of everything
that we've done so far.
I want this off my face so bad.
I'm feeling a little claustrophobic.
Oh my gosh, that feels so much better.
The thing with Korean look that Americans
aren't going to be used to is that Koreans
like to kind of have this natural glow look
rather than a matte.
So, I have a friend who works at the airlines
and he always sees the the Asiana and the
Korean air pilots and he asks "Why do they
all look so sweaty?"
They call it dewy.
Yes, dewy.
But, I guess it could be perceived as sweaty.
Do I look more Korean?
Ok, this is the moment of truth you guys.
Hold on, are we looking in here?
This is the water that's come from the treatment.
Yeah, so you can see - this is actually not
so bad.
The first time I got it done you could literally
see the squiggles swimming around -
Ah, this one's mine, that's why.
Oh yours is - your skin was already treated!
So, after seeing our...whatever came out of
our pores.
Our pore juice.
I feel like this experience wasn't as gross
as I expected it to be.
That's good.
Overall, I would recommend this experience,
especially you should do it in Korea
because apparently it's like 10 times cheaper.
It's so much cheaper, and they're just masters
of their craft here.
And doesn't your face feel so much lighter?
It does!
All right, so for this Elise Tries I would
say try it.
But only if you can get it for really cheap.
