MY IOPE ~ Or how to indulge without splurging~

Like any other girl, I secretly want to indulge in luxe skincare that really works. I've learned from bad experience using the much vaunted SKII brand that "pricey" does not exactly mean "effective". It could turn out to mean red rashes and more sensitized skin. That was 5,000 pesos down the drain. A very expensive lesson, but at least I now know that SKII and my skin is a match made in hell.

But then I got to try IOPE, and I finally found that luxe brand I love. IOPE is a premium brand from Amore Pacific, the gargantuan beauty empire in Korea which owns brands such as Etude, Innisfree, Laneige, Hera, Happy Bath and Sulwhasoo. I do not like Laneige much. I feel it's too pricey for a midlevel brand so it surprised me that I found IOPE to be good for my skin. Only problem is, it's such an expensive brand. A face cream costs 3,000 pesos, their eye creams cost 2,000. Pretty much all of IOPE's products are on the 2000+++ pesos price mark.

So what's a girl to do when she can't exactly afford to spend 3k on a face cream and still want to indulge? Well, as they say, When in Rome do what the Romans do. Or actually, my korean friend taught me about the art of buying manufacturers samplers of highend cosmetics such as IOPE. Apparently a lot of young office girls in Korea do this.


These are the IOPE Products I use:

IOPE RETINOL TX CREAM - The 45 ml costs PHP 3100.00 . It's an anti-wrinkle cream in a hydrating base so it doesn't cause flakiness or rough skin. Unlike other retinol formulations, this doesn't sting or make my face red.

IOPE V-FIT LIFT EYE CREAM - The 25 ml jar costs about PHP2000.00. I love this eye cream. It's a contour eye cream to combat droopy skin/wrinkles/laugh lines around the eye area. I also noticed that it helps in preventing dark circles. ( I have super chinky eyes so I cannot afford to have dark circles or puffy undereye lines. Panda eyes are never in, right?)


These two items are waaaay expensive and honestly I cannot take spending more than 5k for these products.

Luckily, I've found a really consistent, honest and reasonably priced supplier of manufacturer's samples for these products. The supplier places the manufacture date of the samplers so at least I'm aware of the expiration date of the goodies.

The Retinol RX are in 5 ml tubes while the V-Fit Eye Creams come in 10 ml tubes. My stash above would last me close to 3-4 months and it cost me only a little over 1k pesos. That's big savings on my part!

So there, sometimes it doesn't follow that you have to splurge to indulge. ;-)