Renewme Skin Clinic

Happy Wednesday! Nice to know it's already the middle of the week. I'm the type of person who sees the glass as half full - I'm happy that there are only two more days after today until the weekend. Haha, or at least that's what I am trying to tell myself today :) So, have you heard of cocktail treatments at a skin clinic? And no, I'm not referring to treatments + free cocktails, though that sounds quite nice as well. At Renewme Skin Clinic, we offer a package of several treatments that you can receive in one day - a mixture of lasers and procedures, much like a cocktail. The price for a cocktail is, of course, much lower than what you would need to pay for each individual treatment. With our equipment and skilled doctors, we can treat whichever concerns you the most - sagging skin, acne scars, wide pores, you name it. If your time in Korea is limited, but you still want to squeeze in a treatment for your skin, a cocktail might be just what you need. After...

Blog contribution by Dr. Ko Na Young of our Hwagok branch. View original posting here . I received a botox injection between my eyes and on my forehead just a few days ago, since my wrinkles had started to bother me again and I decided I couldn't let them be anymore. Botox is a general term for treatments that use a commercialized solution of botulinum toxin A. At Renewme Skin Clinic, we use the U.S. brand Allergan as well as a Korean brand, Meditoxin. Botulinum toxin is secreted from anaerobic bacteria called Clostridium botulinum. By blocking neurotransmiters in the nerve endings (particularly acethylcholine), botox causes paralysis in muscle, and was first used to treat dystonia, or abnormal muscle contractions such as eye twitching. However, during treatment, it was discovered that botox injections also remove wrinkles, and from then was used for cosmetic purposes too. Today, we use botox injections not only for muscle contractions, but for a much wider range of...

One thing I really miss about living in the United States is my oven. I didn't find a lot of use for it, but it was nice for the occasional pound cake, or for baking potatoes and things like that. And you really start to appreciate things once they are taken away from you - as was the case for my oven. Baking is not an essential part of Korean cuisine. We're more about... stir-frying. Steaming. Broiling. Sauteing. Boiling. Grilling. Fermenting. And a lot more time consuming stuff, but all of which do not require an oven. Sad, I know. But on the bright side, we find alternative ways to make traditionally baked goods. For example, I've made cookies with a frying pan, and cheesecake with a rice cooker. Strange, right? Surprisingly, though, they all turned out amazing. And last night, I discovered a brownie mix that could be done with just a microwave, and decided to try it out. So this is what the box looks like. Authentic "Bakery" at Home, eh? With Be...

LET'S TALK ABOUT MOLES! So, I have a few moles on my face. About 5, to be exact. And those are just the real obvious ones - on bad days, my face can be a total mess. To be honest, my moles don't really bother me, since they'd been around forever and I'm just so used to them. I consider the one under my mouth a beauty mark, and I've been told it means I eat well... which I'm only too happy to accept as truth. Because, er... it can also mean that I won't starve to death or anything, right? There were a couple of embarrassing moments, though. When I was very little, eating noodles (jjajangmyeon) with my brother, he looked up from his plate and told me I had some sauce on my face. It was a very dark brown sauce, very easy to get messy when eating. I wiped my face but he said it was still there. Being the self-conscious girl I was, I rushed to the mirror and saw that my face was actually clean, but he had seen the mole and took it for sauce. I scolded h...

I love pie. I haven't had enough of it during my lifetime to call myself a connoisseur or anything, but there is something so cozy and heartwarming about pie that makes me love it so much. Aside from the fact that it tastes like heaven. I even love pies that I have never tasted before. When I was watching the movie "The Help," I was craving Minny Jackson's chocolate pie so badly I googled images of it just to imagine the taste and texture of it. Buying pie in Korea can actually get a bit difficult, because Koreans are not particularly big on pie. It's not available in your local supermarket, and cafes or bakeries usually sell tiny little hand-held pies that are different from the real thing. And oh gosh, now that we're on the topic of pie, I'd once been searching everywhere to get some pumpkin pie because I just wanted it so badly one day. I couldn't find a place that sold pumpkin pie in Korea - I was even prepared to pay good money for it, but...

This past weekend, a friend of mine who got married last October finally invited me and another friend to her new home for lunch (we hadn't seen her since the wedding). It was a small, very old apartment building in a quiet part of town. I was not expecting much of the home because the building itself was just plain, boring bricks, but the interior was something completely different altogether - clean, sophisticated, brightly colored and cozy. I guess that's what you get when you marry an interior designer! Anyway, I digress. So her living room wall, as is the case for most newlyweds, was full of framed wedding photos. All brides are beautiful, of course, and this friend of mine was no exception. She was the perfect example of elegant grace, her smile radiant and simply glowing. One particular photo stood out; her torso was turned to the camera, head turned to the left, eyes gazing lovingly into her husband's. We made exclamations of admiration at this photo, to which my ...

Another blog post contributed by Dr. Ko Na Young of our Hwagok branch!  Click here to view original post in Korean. __________________________________ Facial flushing/redness can be troublesome for many, especially during the wintertime. I myself have been victim to blushing since my twenties, and have been steadily receiving laser treatment. Flushing actually runs in the whole family; my brother and parents all turn red as well, and so they receive treatment along with me. I've tried most available lasers, from V-Beam to IPL, Vantage, etc. but since Excel-V was introduced to our clinic last year, it has become my go-to laser. Why? Because I've tried so many different treatments for my flushing, but Excel-V has by far shown the best results. With Excel-V, I can adjust the laser wavelengths, pulse duration, and energy, and I am able to set the mode to treat either flushing, pigmentation, and skin elasticity . Since my main concern is flushing, this is the mode I se...