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Korean celebrities seem to have an uncanny ability to always look their best. Be it on-camera or off-duty, face full of makeup or bare, they look effortlessly flawless.

Despite their global stardom and glamorous public appearances, we notice that these Korean celebrities are all about keeping it real in terms of both skincare and makeup. Their daily routines involve using the most back-to-basics and affordable ways to take care of themselves inside and out. And don’t you just love how gentle they are with their skin!

Lucky for us they’re not stingy with personal beauty tips. They’re always more than willing to share their beauty secrets and not-so-secrets in tutorials and interviews! Here are 16 interesting beauty tips that eight Korean beauty gurus/celebrities swear by.

1. Jung Hoyeon

Skincare Tip: Massage pressure points to improve blood circulation which would increase oxygen distribution to the skin and hence improve skin tone and reduce puffiness. Hoyeon massages her eyelids and uses a pointed wooden tool to massage the junction between her thumb and index finger.

Makeup Tip: Use two lip colours to do a just-bitten gradient lip. She combines a red lip pencil and a brown lip pencil by colouring the entire lip with the former and just the centre of the lip with the latter. This way, the gradient looks subtler and more natural.

2. Irene Kim

Skincare Tip: Soothe a zit with toner in a hot shower. When the shower room starts to steam up, she would soak a cotton round with some toner and apply it directly on her breakouts because the steam opens up the pores and allows the soothing properties of the toner to be more readily absorbed.

Makeup Tip: Complete your smokey eyes before you prep your skin so as to avoid making a mess of freshly prepped skin. Flakes and smudges are part and parcel of a smokey eye and those can dirty skin that has just been cleansed, toned, and moisturised.

3. Jessica Jung

Skincare Tip: Use the heat of your palms on your face after applying skincare products to enable better absorption. Body heat emitted from your palms enhances the penetration of skincare products into the skin as pores dilate to absorb the ingredients readily into more responsive skin cells.

Makeup Tip: Heat the curve of the eyelash curler before you curl your lashes for a more dramatic curl. Take a hairdryer and warm up the eyelash cage of the curler and check that it’s not too hot before curling your lashes with it.

4. Lee Sung Kyung

Beauty Tip: When you’re in a relaxed position, instead of resting your face on your palms, lean the side of your neck on your palms instead. Her theory is that if you lean your face on your palms you’re altering the shape of your face over time.

Makeup Tip: Apply lip tint on both lips and cheeks. She has expressed her love for using lip tints both on her lips and cheeks because of its rich pigment payoff on the lips and naturally stained finish on the cheeks when blended out.

5. Suzy

Skincare Tip: Exfoliate while moisturising the skin by using a cotton pad to apply serum. The texture of the cotton very gently removes dead skin cells as the rich ingredients of the serum nourish the skin.

Makeup Tip: A bit of powder on glossy lips gives a natural-looking matte finish. This is a natural way to mute the shine of a glossy or creamy lip finish.

6. Ha Ji Won

Skincare: Refrain from rubbing product onto your skin. This irritates and stretches the delicate fabric of the skin, causing redness and loss of elasticity, which leads to saggy skin. Instead, gently pat it onto skin.

Makeup: Pout your lips when applying lip colour for a very natural lip makeup look. And it’s more of a puckered pout than a sexy pursed pout.

7. Nana

Skincare Tip: Choose olive oil produced in Spain to cleanse your face. She advises to make sure the olive oil cleanser is from Spain because of its authentic quality.

Makeup Tip: Apply some extra virgin olive oil on top of your makeup to complete your look with a healthy glow. She applies it by way of patting with her palms on the sides of her face, cheeks, forehead, and nose.

8. Pony

Skincare Tip: Wash your face using green tea water by soaking bags of green tea in warm water. Pony shares that green tea has an anti-inflammatory effect on the skin and recommends using it to wash the face twice a week.

Makeup Tip: Contour not just the outer but also the inner corners of the eyes, the sides of the nose and right under the bottom lip. This method gives the face a 3-D effect!