Someone asked me last week where I buy my stuff and I started typing an answer and then just stopped, because the honest answer is “nine different places and there’s a system, I promise.”
There is a system. It’s just not obvious from the outside.
I’ve got androgenic alopecia, seborrhoeic dermatitis on my scalp and face, and type 1 rosacea. So I’m not shopping the way most people shop. I can’t walk into Boots and grab whatever’s on the end cap. I need piroctone olamine and salicylic acid and specific K-beauty formulas that don’t feed Malassezia, and I need salon-grade shampoo for human hair toppers that cost several hundred pounds each. No single shop stocks all of that. Hence nine.
So here’s the actual map. What I buy where, why that shop and not another one, and what I pay. Some of these links earn me a small commission and every code below is mine, which you should know before you read another word. If you just want the codes without the story, they all live on my discount codes page.
Lookfantastic: scalp care, toppers, makeup, fragrance and my Sol de Janeiro habit
This is the one I order from most. Roughly every three weeks, which tells you something about my scalp and possibly about me.
The reason it wins is the Philip Kingsley range. The Flaky Itchy Scalp Toner is the single product I’d repurchase if I could only keep one thing on this whole list, and it’s a leave-on treatment, so it does work a medicated shampoo can’t do in ninety seconds in the shower. I get the INKEY List salicylic acid scalp treatment here too as a pre-wash. The full routine those two sit inside is in my scalp care routine post.
Then there’s the topper problem, and I want to be careful how I say this, because it isn’t a price thing.
Human hair pieces don’t have a scalp. Nothing is feeding them oil, and unlike your own hair they can’t repair themselves or quietly grow out a bad decision. Whatever gets stripped out is just gone. So what they need is something sulfate-free and properly conditioning, and there are drugstore bottles that do that perfectly well if you read the back of them. The price on the front tells you nothing useful.
I use Pureology Strength Cure on mine. Not because it’s the only thing that works, but because I landed on it early, my pieces kept looking like hair instead of like a doll’s, and I stopped experimenting. And I’ll say it plainly rather than hedge: for me, Pureology is justified in the price for the quality. That’s my verdict on my own pieces though, not a rule I’m handing anybody. The rest of how I look after them is in my topper and wig care guide.
Then it quietly became my shop for everything else too. Makeup, fragrance, body care. I go on to reorder conditioner and leave with a situation.
Body care is where it gets embarrassing. Every single bit of Sol de Janeiro I own came from Lookfantastic, and I own a lot of Sol de Janeiro. I bought all three Body Badalada lotions and tested them against each other, which you can read in my Body Badalada comparison, and no, I’m not sorry about any of it.
Code LFTFNEVEEN gets 20% off eligible full-price items, and Lookfantastic bump it up to 30% during their own promo windows. No expiry, nothing to verify, works on repeat orders. Full detail on my Lookfantastic discount code page, and the longer version of how I shop there is in the best way to save at Lookfantastic.
Dermatica: the tretinoin
Different category entirely. Dermatica is a UK prescription skincare subscription, so you fill in a consultation, a dermatologist looks at it, and they build you a formula. Mine’s tretinoin.
I’ve been on it long enough that I don’t think about it anymore, which is the highest compliment I can pay a skincare product. It arrives in a little tube through the letterbox like a present I sent myself.
If you’ve got rosacea and you’re reading that thinking absolutely not, fair. I buffer mine, and I’ve written the whole thing up in my Dermatica tretinoin review because “how do you use tretinoin without setting your face on fire” deserves more than a paragraph.
Code NEVEEN50 is 50% off your first three months. Details on the Dermatica discount code page.
The K-beauty situation (four shops, and yes there’s a reason)
Right, this is where people’s eyes glaze over, so let me actually explain it rather than listing four names and hoping.
The four shops are not interchangeable. They ship from different places, they price differently, and one of them can land you with a customs bill. Which one I use on any given day depends entirely on what’s in the basket and how fast I need it. What I’m actually buying across all of them is in my seb derm face skincare directory.
YesStyle
Where I go when I want one specific thing and I want to compare prices while I’m there. The range is enormous. My SKIN1004 azelaic acid comes from here, and if you’ve read my Anua vs SKIN1004 head to head you’ll know that one won by a decent margin.
The thing worth understanding about my code here is that it stacks. NEVEEN15 gives an extra 2% to 5% on top of whatever YesStyle already has running, with no minimum spend, no signup and no expiry, and it works on repeat orders. YesStyle almost always has something running, so the stacking is the whole point of it. More on the YesStyle discount code page.
Stylevana
The one I order from most out of all of these. My Etude Soon Jung products come from here and I reorder them without thinking about it, which is the only real test of whether something has earned its place in a routine.
Flash sales are the other reason. Prices move a lot, which is annoying if you’re trying to compare and excellent if you catch it right. They sent me their Vana Box a while back and I went through every single ingredient list before I opened it, because I’ve learned the hard way that “PR skincare” and “safe for my face” are not the same sentence. That’s in my Vana Box unboxing.
Code INF10NEVE, up to 25% off. Stylevana discount code page.
StyleKorean
The one I use when I want something newer or more niche than the big sites carry, and the one to watch for boxed deals. They put together bundles every so often that work out at a genuinely different price per product than buying the same things separately, so it’s worth a look before you build a basket anywhere else.
Their code goes in a “Rewards Code” field rather than the usual promo box, which trips people up constantly, so I’ve written that bit out properly on the StyleKorean discount code page.
Code NEVEEN20, 5% to 15% off.
Olive Young
Straight from Korea, which is both the appeal and the catch. You’re getting the actual Korean drugstore rather than a Western curation of it. Shipping is free over about $60 and usually comes DHL.
The catch: UK orders over £135 can pick up import duty plus 20% VAT plus a courier handling fee. Under £135 you’re fine. I keep my baskets deliberately under it and I’d tell you to do the same. That’s not me being cautious, it’s me having done the maths once and not enjoying it.
Code NEVEEN20, up to 10% off. Olive Young discount code page.
And Skinsider, if you can’t be doing with any of that
UK-based K-beauty. Smaller range, no customs question, no waiting a fortnight. Sometimes that’s worth more than the saving. Code NEVEEN15 for 15% off.
Which K-beauty shop for what
| Shop | Ships from | Best for | Customs risk | Code |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| YesStyle | Asia | Huge range, price comparison, stacking | Low on normal baskets | NEVEEN15 |
| Stylevana | Asia | Flash sales, reorders, where I buy most | Low on normal baskets | INF10NEVE |
| StyleKorean | Korea | Newer and more niche brands, boxed deals | Low on normal baskets | NEVEEN20 |
| Olive Young | Korea | The actual Korean drugstore | Yes, over £135 | NEVEEN20 |
| Skinsider | UK | Speed, no customs, small curated range | None | NEVEEN15 |
Charlotte Tilbury and NARS: the makeup I’m still learning
I’ll be honest with you here in a way I’m not always comfortable being. I am not good at makeup. I’ve got hooded eyes and forty-three years of experience and I still watch tutorials with my mouth slightly open.
So I buy makeup differently to how I buy skincare. Skincare I research to death. Makeup I buy things that are hard to get wrong.
Charlotte Tilbury is where I go for that. The formulas are forgiving, which matters when your application technique is best described as optimistic. Code CT-SOCLVNP53V5 is 15% off, new customers only, one use, through their Refer a Friend programme. Charlotte Tilbury discount code page.
NARS I got into more recently and I’ve gone in fairly hard. Code NARSDUEL15-YDB4RROS67 is 15% off full-price on the UK site, £45 minimum, one use per customer, through their Friends With Benefits programme. NARS discount code page.
Both of those are one-use referral codes rather than the reusable kind, so spend them on a proper order rather than a lipstick.
What I’d tell you if you only wanted one shop
Lookfantastic. Not because it’s the cheapest, but because it’s the only one on this list that covers scalp, hair, skincare, makeup, body care and fragrance in a single basket, and my code works on repeat orders rather than dying after the first one.
If your face is the problem rather than your scalp, I’d send you to YesStyle instead and tell you to stack the code onto whatever sale they’ve got on.
And if you’d rather see the products than the shops, the running list of everything I actually use and rebuy is over here.
FAQs
Where does Neveen Wood buy her skincare?
Mostly YesStyle, Stylevana, StyleKorean and Olive Young for K-beauty, Lookfantastic for scalp care and anything my hair toppers touch, and Dermatica for my prescription tretinoin.
YesStyle vs Stylevana: which one should you use?
Stylevana, if you’re asking which one I use more. That’s where my Etude Soon Jung reorders come from, and their flash sales mean timing matters as much as the price does. YesStyle is where I go when I want range and I want to compare a few options in one place, and my code there stacks on top of whatever sale is already running. Both ship from Asia and both take a similar length of time, so it really comes down to whether you already know exactly what you want.
Which K-beauty site is best for UK delivery?
Skinsider, because it ships from the UK, so there’s no customs question and no long wait. For range rather than speed, YesStyle is the one I use most.
Do you pay customs on Olive Young orders to the UK?
Not under £135. Over that, you can be charged import duty plus 20% VAT on the goods and shipping, plus a courier handling fee. I keep my baskets under the threshold.
What is the best shampoo for a human hair topper?
I use Pureology Strength Cure on mine and I think it’s justified in the price for the quality. What decides whether a shampoo suits a topper though is the formula rather than the price tag. A human hair piece has no scalp feeding it oil and can’t repair itself, so you want something sulfate-free and conditioning rather than stripping, and plenty of cheaper bottles meet that.
Where can you buy Sol de Janeiro in the UK?
Lookfantastic. That’s where every bottle I own has come from, including all three of the Body Badalada lotions, and my code applies to eligible full-price items.
Can you use more than one discount code on the same order?
Not usually. Most codes won’t stack with each other. The YesStyle one is the exception on this list because it applies on top of their existing sale pricing rather than instead of it.
