



The haul in all it's "please don't start raining until after I finish this photo" glory. There's no haul quite as special as a buying service haul; when your grabby hands get a hold of goodies that would otherwise never be within your reach. The thrill of trying new, strange things is something I'm absolutely addicted to, and buying services help me supply that habit.



In this post:

Korean buying service 101

A sad update

My experience with Dowaja vs other buying services

The goods: what I bought, where I bought it, and what it cost

Final thoughts

I had to call in a complaint on my new USPS delivery person to get it, but this haul is finally here and there's snails, hanbang, pH strips, and sample swag waiting. Let's do this!





Today's post is going to feature some of my favourite things: snails, hanbang, pH testing, sheet masks, nerdiness, spreadsheets, and buying services. Also lots of haul eyecandy of all of the above.There's no haul quite as special as a buying service haul; when your grabby hands get a hold of goodies that would otherwise never be within your reach. The thrill of trying new, strange things is something I'm absolutely addicted to, and buying services help me supply that habit.I had to call in a complaint on my new USPS delivery person to get it, but this haul is finally here and there's snails, hanbang, pH strips, and sample swag waiting. Let's do this!

Korean buying service 101

What is a buying service? A buying service is like a friend-who-lives-in-Korea (or whichever country) who you ask "if I send you the funds, can you buy me X thing and mail it to me pretty please?" and instead of you paying for their trouble in late-night girlchat about her terrible ex, belated birthday presents, and how much you two miss one another, you pay them a small fee for their trouble.



Buying services charge for 2 separate costs: the initial cost of buying your items, and then once they arrive and are weighed, the cost to mail them to you. Then you get pretties:



Unboxing happiness: greeted by snails. How do you know what to tell them to buy for you? If you follow my blog, you'll be very familiar with my addiction to getting hard-to-find Korean goods by using a buying service- even though I don't speak Korean. In fact, I teamed up with fluent-in-Korean & translation-powerhouse blogger Kahime and Snow’s Guide to Shopping for Hard-to-Find Korean Products When You Don’t Know Korean. A buying service is like a friend-who-lives-in-Korea (or whichever country) who you ask "if I send you the funds, can you buy me X thing and mail it to me pretty please?" and instead of you paying for their trouble in late-night girlchat about her terrible ex, belated birthday presents, and how much you two miss one another, you pay them a small fee for their trouble.Buying services charge for: the, and then once they arrive and are weighed,. Then you get pretties:If you follow my blog, you'll be very familiar with my addiction to getting hard-to-find Korean goods by using a buying service-. In fact, I teamed up with fluent-in-Korean & translation-powerhouse blogger Lin Lin Hime to write:





In that post, we covered:

How to locate the products you want

A list of Korean web shops/online malls

Key search words in Korean and English, including terms, ingredients, and brand names

How to collect the data you'll need to provide the buying service

A spreadsheet that auto-calculates (in real time) the actual cost of your items so you can comparison shop So if you are new to buying services, definitely check out that post to get started. Should I use a buying service?

using a buying service only makes sense to me if 1. the product cannot be purchased anywhere else, not even from any of the international Korean e-tailers, or 2. it's so drastically cheaper to purchase it directly from Korea that even the cost of shipping still leaves you with an epic deal. For the latter, the spreadsheet is an absolute sanity-saver, because you can see what your actual cost before shipping would be, so you can look at your standard options and decide if the savings will offset the cost of shipping.



You can read about how to estimate shipping here: Making the Most out of K-Beauty: 5 Simple Hacks





A sad update



10-6-2015 Update: I am afraid I have some sad news. Dowaja has decided (for now, at least) to close their business, for the below reasons posted on their site:

We’re sure some of you may have heard the news by now, but for the immediate future we’ve decided to suspend our services here at dowaja. Before anything else, we just want to let those with active orders know that their orders will be completed. If you’ve paid or received an invoice, we will complete your orders. It’s quite an understatement to say that it was a difficult decision, but in the end it’s one that we felt we really had to make. dowaja is run by two people in our free time. Before we started, we had hoped that we could do this full time one day. In the past couple of weeks, we got to the point where we had to make that a decision. After some soul-searching and serious adult thinking, we realized it just wouldn’t be possible. We have had such a great experience running dowaja over the past few months. We’ve been so fortunate to have met and interacted with a lot of great people. It’s definitely the thing that has kept us going this long. Seriously, you guys are awesome! Even when we’ve had delays, back-orders, neglected emails, and what have you—people have been so patient and understanding. If you need help with an active order, please use our contact form or email us directly at dowajahelpme (at) gmail.com. Thank you so much for your support and faith during this time. All the best, Team dowaja! -Kevin and Min Wait ... what?! image from giphy.com I suspect that Dowaja became a victim of their own success; they offered a wonderful service for a very undervalued rate, and I can absolutely see how it was not a viable long-term situation. I really wish Kevin and Min all the best- they are wonderful people and were a pleasure to work with. I sincerely hope that one day they might return in another form; I know I would have paid at least double for the 'personal shopping' type service they provided- 10% was a very low cost considering the high quality of service that was offered. . I am afraid I have some sad news. Dowaja has decided (for now, at least) to close their business, for the below reasons posted on their site:

Most of the information in this post (the buying service 101, the details of the goods I got, etc) is still relevant, but Dowaja is no more.



My experience with Dowaja vs other buying services



Note: Per the above update, this section is no longer as relevant, but I am going to leave it here for those curious as to what sorts of differences they may find in using a buying service.



The last point in the above list is extremely important, becauseto me if, not even from any of the international Korean e-tailers,to purchase it directly from Korea that even the cost of shipping still leaves you with an epic deal. For the latter, the spreadsheet is an absolute sanity-saver, because you can see what your actual cost before shipping would be, so you can look at your standard options and decide if the savings will offset the cost of shipping.You can read abouthere:





So when



'Dowaja' literally means 'help me' in Korean. So cute.

From their first communications, the primary trait that stood out to me was their sense of humour. The Dowaja team, although they are very serious about customer service and as dedicated and enthusiastic as one would want, they're also downright adorable and very funny. It's refreshing, and charming.



For example, when we were discussing whether they could export dried, whole herbs (the kind you buy by the scoop) they had the following suggestions:

Anyhow, we have two ideas. The first option is sourcing them online from sellers like the one above. This would be the simplest and probably wouldn't cost much more than making the trek to a market to be honest. If 100g is still too much (or if you're worried about shipping costs), we can send whatever amount you like and have Min's (our lovely product sourcer) mother make us some tea or 삼계탕 with the leftovers in your honor. We'll take pictures, I promise! [Note: 삼계탕 Samgyetang is a type of chicken soup made with herbs, and looks like this:]



image from english.visitkorea.or.kr The other option is to head to a traditional market and get yelled at by the 할머니s for buying such small quantities :P (we can take pictures of this too!). If you're really set on this option, we can figure something out, but I really feel like the first option would be simplest--no pressure ;). The thought of the poor team at Dowaja facing down a fierce 할머니 (grandmother) immediately makes me think of this:

image from giphy.com Dowaja's adorable game is strong. Between photojournalling the authentic "Korean mom making you drink herb tea" offer (to save the shipping costs of the unwanted extras, to boot) and the promise to brave the wrath of the shop grannies was too much. Bahahahaha! I'm dead. While Avecko is polite and professional and I appreciate that, Dowaja is less formal; they're warm, genuine, and willing to interact with you in a very real, sincere way.



That also fits with their 'style', which is rescuing hapless shoppers who don't speak Korean, can't find what they're looking for, are overwhelmed and panicking, or need a lot of hand holding. Up until now, I've used Avecko's buying service, and was mostly happy with them- but as they became more popular, they also became more restrictive and updated their website ordering system that made the process less transparent. There were also issues of delays due to them being swamped, which is understandable.So when Dowaja launched their service, I was curious as to what they would bring to the table that was different.From their first communications, the primary trait that stood out to me was their sense of humour. The Dowaja team, although they are very serious about customer service and as dedicated and enthusiastic as one would want, they're also downright adorable and very funny. It's refreshing, and charming.For example, when we were discussing whether they could export dried, whole herbs (the kind you buy by the scoop) they had the following suggestions:[Note: 삼계탕 Samgyetang is a type of chicken soup made with herbs, and looks like this:]The thought of the poor team at Dowaja facing down a fierce 할머니 (grandmother) immediately makes me think of this:Dowaja's adorable game is strong. Between photojournalling the authentic "Korean mom making you drink herb tea" offer (to save the shipping costs of the unwanted extras, to boot) and the promise to brave the wrath of the shop grannies was too much. Bahahahaha! I'm dead. While Avecko is polite and professional and I appreciate that, Dowaja is less formal; they're warm, genuine, and willing to interact with you in a very real, sincere way.





88 emails in my chain of communication with them, plus two skype chats! They put up with me trying to coordinate a group buy for weeks (and during my move no less) and never once did I feel like they'd want to strangle me, and I'd want to strange me by that point!



I asked them if they'd be willing to share a bit about how they got started, and they graciously did so:

Min and I have both wanted to start a small-business for awhile. In particular, I've always wanted to do something online. We were both inspired by services that do the opposite, i.e. Koreans who want to buy stuff from U.S. (all praise Amazon), European, and Japanese sites. You won't believe this, but it's actually cheaper to buy a lot of Korean products from the U.S. My LG TV and Samsung laptop were both bought through U.S. based buying services and shipped to Korea. Crazy right? When we originally started, we wanted to focus more on fashion as it seemed like there are quite a few retailers already doing skin care / beauty products. However, we've always had so much more interest in the latter so we've shifted our focus. We are both internet nerds and do 90% of our shopping online (I do my weekly grocery shopping from my smart phone, Korea #1!) and it seemed like it would be something we could do well. Adorable. (Also, grocery shopping from my phone?! Yes please!) I don't at all mean that in a patronizing way either; Dowaja did an excellent job of sleuthing out things based on vague descriptions, screenshots of images, and by developing an understanding of my tastes so they could make recommendations. And they did a phenomenal job. They're also patient. Really, really patient. I have a total ofin my chain of communication with them, plus two skype chats! They put up with me trying to coordinate a group buy for weeks (and during my move no less) and never once did I feel like they'd want to strangle me, andwant to strange me by that point!I asked them if they'd be willing to share a bit about how they got started, and they graciously did so:Adorable. (Also, grocery shopping from my phone?! Yes please!) I don't at all mean that in a patronizing way either; Dowaja did an excellent job of sleuthing out things based on vague descriptions, screenshots of images, and by developing an understanding of my tastes so they could make recommendations. And they did a phenomenal job.





That's where they really excel, in my opinion, over other buying services- like their namesake, Dowaja is the buying service you want when you don't know what you want. They managed to find me things that I'd never have found on my own.









The goods: what I bought, where I bought it, and what it cost



You know, come to think of it, I'm not exactly sure where my items came from, because one of the services that Dowaja offers is a price check on all your items to see if they can find it somewhere else for cheaper. Ok, scratch the 'where' part, because I don't actually have links to the final sources. In fact, my first item wasn't a link at all; it was just an image of these adorable snail masks:





The Skin Shop Snail mask packs

4 flavours of snail mask: EGF, Ginseng, Dew, and Snow.

Specifically, the one I sent them was of the "Snail + Snow" mask; clearly we were destined for one another. These masks were $0.66 each, plus a domestic shipping fee, for a total of $5.28 USD for 8 masks; I purchased two of each type,





Per the packaging, here's the 'flavours':

Snail mask pack with E.G.F - Skin Rejuvenation

Snail mask pack with red ginseng - Anti-wrinkle Function Certification

Snail mask pack with dews - Moisturizing

Snail mask pack with snow - Whitening Function Certification

I'm looking forward to trying these; I'm a longtime snailfan and these let me double down on snails + other mask ingredients

.





Sulwhasoo Perfecting Cushion in #13 - Refill Only

I already own the Sulwhasoo Perfecting Cushion peony case, which was limited edition, and I have it filled with a Sulwhasoo Perfecting Brightening cushion in #17; sadly it's too dark for me. I wanted to try the lightest shade, which is #13, but I didn't need a whole cushion, just a refill insert.

New #13 insert + my original LE peony case which holds the Perfecting Cushion Brightening #17 right now. Dowaja was able to find me the refill for $16.73, and it retails for around $25 through regular channels (sometimes you can find it on ebay for slightly less) so considering that I was already paying shipping for the overall order, it was a good deal.



Cremorlab T.E.N. Cremor Cleansing Veil 70 sheets

Encouraged by my love of the Encouraged by my love of the Cremorlab T.E.N. Cremor Cleansing Gel Oil , blogger adordee's love of their cleansing sheets , and my love for adordee , it seemed only natural for me to try them.





Holy swag, batman! Two full size sheet masks as free samples?! Cremorlab is hard to source in the US;



Speaking of sample swag, I somehow ended up with a veritable glut of samples: Cremorlab is hard to source in the US; Peach and Lily carry them , and they're not badly priced considering that it's 70 sheets, but Dowaja was able to find it for me for $11.60 USD. Again, shipping is always a factor but I was already committed for shipping anyway. Throw 'em in!Speaking of sample swag, I somehow ended up with a veritable glut of samples:





So many samples!

In fact, I think that only the bottom row of samples were meant for me; I think the others were destined for melubbeauty's LJH Tea Tree 90 Essence portion of the haul; I have a package of decants destined for her to swatch regardless, so I'll send these to her in that box.





The bottom row is Saeng Green (Saengreen? SaenGreen?) samples that came with the product I was the most excited about:









Saeng Green Vidanjasoo Skin Gel





It wouldn't be a Snow Haul if there was no Hanbang, right? As soon as I saw this magnificent beauty on Gmarket, I had to have it, in all it's fermented-apricot glory:





Dat packaging.





It might turn out to be terrible, but look at that packaging detail:









Etched design in the cap

I'll be testing this out after I finish testing this next product; this is where Dowaja really came through and blew me away with their abilities to 'help me'. I told them that I was looking for a low-pH cleanser and gave them a budget (under $30 if I remember correctly) and they were able to find me not one, but three different options, and I chose this one as they advised that this brand was the most popular of the options and I loved how intensely nerdy the product page was.









What is it? Not really sure. What is it supposed to do? No idea, really. It's some sort of serum/gel/essence sort of thing, but I'd seen the brand mentioned only once before, in a discussion of Hanbang skincare (table for one, please!) and the price was right ($26.12), so I decided it would be my 'wild and crazy purchase' for this haul. Risk can be good; it's how I discovered the Beauty of Joseon Dynasty cream Joseon Beauty cream aka Joseon Woman cream last spring, which is now blowing up all over Amazon, ebay, and Korean international sellers.