Laneige Global Beauty Camp Day 1: Aritaum Shopping & W Walkerhill Seoul Check-in

Now that I’m more or less re-energised from my whirlwind trip to Korea to attend their Global Beauty Camp last week, I’ve finally gotten down to editing the truckload of photos I took :D Rather than bore you with my usual verbal diarrhea, I’m gonna let my photos do the talking (because honestly, the photos are way more fun too!)

DEPARTURE

Passport – checked. Boarding pass – checked. Invite to Global Beauty Camp – totally checked!

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Day 1 MORNING: TOUCHDOWN & SHOPPING AT ARITAUM

First up on our agenda was a stop at Aritaum – Laneige is defo a brand after my own heart. Some people require a shower to perk up after a red-eye flight, while I can totally settle for a wipe-out-the-shelves shopping spreeeeee (paid by me me me).

Yes, yes, go ahead and judge me – I actually arrived earlier than the store’s designated opening time of 10am.

Now a lil background here – Aritaum is the brand emporium of AmorePacific (the parent company that owns a whole plethora of brands).

• Here, you can find: Most of its mass market brands such as IOPE, Hanyul, Mamonde, Aritaum, Laneige, Laneige Homme, Happy Bath, Ryeo, VB Program, illi, Modi Nails, and Mise En Scene.
• You will not find: Etude House, Innisfree, Sulwhasoo, Hera, Lirikos, Primera, Espoir here because they have their own free-standing stores.

But enough with the rambling – the store is open zomg! It’s time to SHOP! But first – a commemorative shot, just because. Hah.
This is what beauty heaven must look like – seriously, just take all my money already :D
Positioned right in front of the store to greet you – Rows upon rows of Modi nail polishes – they have all sorts of vernis :D From Gel to textured to normal and even neon and glow in the dark ones. Like whutttt. Their Gel Nail UV Lamp is also rather affordable – I remember seeing a price tag of less than SGD$100.

Starting from the back of the store, there’s IOPE, Hanyul and VB Program here

There’s even a dedicated Man Studio (le homme’s corner) where the gents can browse through their stuff – psst: spot the IOPE Cushion for men on the second row in the corner?
Ryeo is also under AmorePacific, and it’s a shampoo brand that I swear by. It’s full of herbal and ginseng goodness, and minimised my hairfall by 50% (I kid you not – my mom forces me to pick up my fallen hair from the drain cover after each shower, and I noticed a visible reduction in hairfall after I started using Ryeo)
Aritaum carries products to cover you from head to toe – literally. Shampoos, body shower gels, hair dyes, etc. In fact, it could be inside to out as well, with their VB Program dietary supplements for slimming even. Like woah.
Shelves upon shelves of makeup and colour items this time – a consolidation of very affordable and high-performance products from their Aritaum line, as well as Laneige and IOPE

The Aritaum-brand Mono Eyes eyeshadow pots are apparently really popular in Korea – strong colour payoff, good price, fine texture.
Base products sorted according to brands – Laneige, IOPE, Mamonde, Hanyul and more. If only my room had such a storage space – IKEA, idea for you!

IOPE’s Tinted Liquid Rouge that I’ve been wanting to try… to buy, or not to buy? Their Color Lips Fit is working really well for me though.
Now this is what I call a real sale – and it’s not even on super old stock! Their Honey Melting Tint was going at 1+1 (aka buy 1 get 1 free) :D
Unfortunately, their latest offering – the Water Sliding Tint – is not on sale yet (not that it’s that pricey at just KRW9,000 each)

Among the skincare products they carry – Mamonde’s products are pretty decent (I’ve tried some before)
Of course, you’ll also find one of AmorePacific’s top-selling brands here – presenting Laneige~ tadah~!
Holy mama – What a huge cleanser Laneige has!

By this time, I more or less couldn’t contain myself (hey, I managed to retain some sanity as I went around taking photos for about 10-15 minutes hurhurhur). Let the photography stop, and the shopping commence! :D

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DAY 1 LATE MORNING: CHECK-IN AT W SEOUL WALKERHILL

After the whirlwind shopping spree and frenetic stuffing of the haul into the luggage, we cabbed over to W Seoul Walkerhill – they aren’t kidding when they named the place Walkerhill. It literally is located atop a little hill, and you gotta walk your buns off just to reach it (in the unfortunate event that you’re not cabbing up).

Amidst all the fumbling with the cash, wallet, gloves, scarf, luggages and the penguin suit, I really didn’t have any additional limb capacity to take photos, so here’s a photo taken off the internet on how the hotel looks out from the outside.

Now, note that it’s located right next to the Sheraton Hotel – the drive-in is ajoined (we found out the embarrassing way when the cabby dropped us off at Sheraton instead of W).

But in any case, I managed to check in (after rolling my luggage out of Sheraton and into W Seoul heh). I opened the door to reveal this…

Let .. there… be… light!
Woah mama – the room is gorgeous!
First things first – getting cleaned up! But looking at the pristine state of the toilet – I felt like it was more of me dirtying the bath area instead hurhurhur.
A generous amount of space in the toilet area…

Saving the world from idiots like myself – clearly-labelled towels (and with different qualities of towelling too!)
It’s all in the details – even the fresh roll of toilet paper has the W embossed into it – thank you room service staff for painstakingly embossing the W every morning for me. heh.
The faucets of the sink are located along the side (kinda like a kitchen grill tbh) – a little hard to adjust to, especially when my face is covered with foam and I’m trying blindly feel my way with foamy hands for the cold (and not hot) faucet.

W hotel usually comes with Bliss toiletries, but for this Laneige Global Beauty Camp, they replaced them all with AmorePacific’s toiletries (yay!)

Illi body products (which I love!)

Now that I’m clean, I can haz lumping session, yes yes?

A hugeee bed that allows me to roll over 3x (yes, I gauge my beds that way), along with very considerately selected goodies, snacks and toiletries placed on the bed :D

Views of the room from different corners (it was so, so hard for me to resist plonking myself directly into the bed immediately)
THE VIEW. IT IS GORGEOUS.
Packed nicely in the boxes and baskets on the bed – food and Korean snacks that are healthy and will make me beayoootifoool :D

And look at this! A specially put-together kit with skincare products for me too – totally feeling the love, Laneige xoxo

At this point, I wolfed down my burger and fries, patted on some skincare and patted the happy belly as well. I blissfully snoozed off (only to awaken about an hour later for my Global Beauty Camp orientation) – Stay tuned for my next blog post as I officially begin my Laneige Global Beauty Camp!