TG2KB Part 5b. Researching Products; How to Figure Out What You Want to Buy - AllofCosmetics

I've talked about using an ingredients-based approach to building your skincare routine here, and again here. In Part 5 of TG2KB, we'll cover some useful tools that will help you discover new products to consider when building or adding to your routine.

Last time, we covered how to use CosDNA to do a ton of useful stuff. Like analyze the ingredients of that cream you'd been eyeing... Or find out which products have all of the ingredients you want, and none of the ingredients you don't. Wow, that just sounded like an ad campaign. Anyways.

CosDNA is great, and most people who are into Korean or Asian beauty rely on it heavily. It's great because it's like the model UN of skincare databases. It covers Western, Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese, and Chinese products. However, I've found that its database is pretty limited when it comes to Korean beauty products that are new releases, or on the less popular side, or not as heavily distributed outside of Korea.

When looking to analyze these more underground Korean beauty products, I turn to AllofCosmetics.

WHAT IS ALLOFCOSMETICS

AllofCosmetics is a product ingredients repository that currently has around 71,000 products in its database.

AllofCosmetics can...

• Help you find ingredients lists (in English!) for Korean products
• Analyze ingredients lists for safety (via EWG Skin Deep site and Cosmetic Ingredient Review (CIR) ratings)
• Classify ingredients by what they do, and how active they are
• Analyze products on the spot (if you sign up and log in)
• Allow you to add product ingredients lists on the spot (if you sign up and log in)

It does not...

• Contain information about acne triggers

Let's get acquainted with the site before delving into the search function.

SEARCHING WITH ALLOFCOSMETICS

You'll love AllofCosmetics's search function because you can use English to search for brands and products.

However, your search term must be broad. Narrow searches (like trying to search for a specific product using its entire name) will more often than not fail. This is due to inaccurate Korean-English translations in the database. 

For example, searching for "Scinic Propolis Ampoule" will bring up zero results. Widen your search by using the search term "Scinic", and you will find the propolis ampoule in the search results. It's a brute force method and takes a little while longer, but it works. See below for ways to use the search function.

SEARCH TYPE 1: Look for the product by typing in its classification. For example, by typing in the word "essence"
Effectiveness: ****/5     Speed: **/5

I will explain a way to troubleshoot the scenario where the product translations are wonky in a few. 

SEARCH TYPE 2: Look for the product by typing in the brand name. For example, by typing in the word "Innisfree"
Effectiveness: ****/5     Speed: **/5

SEARCH TYPE 3: Perform a slightly narrower search by searching with BOTH the brand name and the product type. Example: "Innisfree" "essence"

Effectiveness: **/5     Speed: *****/5

SEARCH TYPE 4: Use AllofCosmetics to find products that contain your favorite ingredient by searching on the ingredient name. For example, by typing in the word "Licorice Root" 

Effectiveness: *****/5     Speed: */5
I like to perform this search when I'm looking for new products to try and am open to finding new brands to consider. This is my "just window shopping" search.

TROUBLESHOOTING WACKY TRANSLATIONS

So while Google Chrome translator does a pretty amazing job overall, Korean can be tricky to translate since there are usually multiple ways to say something in Korean. This is because the Korean language takes a lot of words from the English language and hangul-ifies them, which means English words are translated phonetically into Korean. So when translating between English and Korean and vice versa, Google Chrome and Google Translate often get confused as to whether the translation calls for direct translation or use of a phonetic translation method called romanization. This makes for some pretty funny fails.

See this little snapshot. Since "오바지" (Obagi) is a brand name, it should be translated phonetically. But Google doesn't know that, so it translates it using a direct method. Since, the last two characters "바지" means "pants" in Korean, Google mistakenly calls it "Oh pants".

Oh Pants... you so silly.

So what happens when AllofCosmetics keeps pulling up nonsensical results like "Oh pants"? You use the following method below to figure out the actual name of the brand and product! It's really quick and easy and takes 3 steps.

• When you view the site on the Google Chrome browser, you can simply hover over the confusing word.
• Left-click to open up a little hover pop-up window with the original Korean text. Copy this text.
• Open up a new search window. Paste the Korean you just copied, and search. This will pull up the brand homepage or social media accounts. You may need to give Google more context. To do this, simply add the word "cosmetics" or "skincare".

*There are many applications for this trick, you can use AllofCosmetics to find the Korean words you want to use to search the Korean web. This can lead you to discover new Korean language blogs you want to follow, figure out the official Korean websites of your favorite brands, find Korean online malls that carry your favorite products. It's a whole new world.*

So let's do an example. Let's say you were looking for a product with Niacinamide, and you found a sleeping pack with an ingredients list that just leaves you all heart-eyes. The only trouble is, Google totally failed at translating both the brand name, and the product name. You're looking at gibberish in front of you, scratching your head. You know you want to find the product on a Korean-Korean retailer, and buy it using a shipping service like Avecko. Let's begin.

Let's click into the first search result.

As always, all pictures and graphics I post are pinnable, in case you want to keep them at the ready.

I hope you found this useful. I've grown really fond of this site as a resource for finding new and interesting Kbeauty products. AllofCosmetics isn't a total All-Kill solution for finding unlisted product ingredients...

AllofCosmetics, more Exo than Big Bang

But it comes pretty damn close.




One last thing, I left a few things out of this tutorial such as...

1. How to sign up and log in to AllofCosmetics.
2. How to download, install, and use the AllofCosmetics app. It has a very slow loading time. Each page takes minutes to load. Simply switching to the desktop website version is much faster, and easier.

If you would like tutorials for those last two topics, please let me know. And as always, if you have any questions, feel free to shoot me a note. My contact details can be found on my "About Me" page.

READ THE NEXT TG2KB INSTALLMENTS

INTRO TO KBEAUTY
Part 1. Introduction to Korean Skincare
Part 2. Introduction to Korean Makeup

BRANDS & STORES
Part 3. The Brands
Part 4. The Retailers
     -> Link to a Price Comparison Search Engine (Results from verified sellers only)

RESEARCHING KBEAUTY PRODUCTS
Part 5a. Researching Products; How to Figure Out What You Want to Buy - CosDNA, Popular Products w/ International Stockists
Part 5b. Researching Products; How to Figure Out What You Want to Buy - AllofCosmetics, Korean Products w/o Strong International Presence
Part 5c. Researching Products; How to Figure Out What You Want to Buy - Blogs and Youtube Channels

KBEAUTY STARTER SKINCARE ROUTINES
Part 6. My Skincare Routine & Reasoning
Part 7. Wishlists, or "Make Me a Routine"

"ADVANCED" K-BEAUTY
Part 8. "Advanced" KBeauty - Buying Services & Korean-Korean E-tailers
Using Avecko by SnowWhite&thePear
Using 11st by SnowWhite&thePear
Part 9. Navigating the Korean web: Naver Blogs, Korean Youtubers. Coming soon.
Part 10. Guide to the Hwahae App
Part 11. Beauty Shopping in Seoul