She jets around the world for her high-profile beauty career, but her heart is in Seoul. Here are her top K-beauty experiences in town, from face lasers to body scrubs.

For Chriselle Lim – style guru, digital creator and creative director of PHLUR fragrances – self-care is a way of life. Especially when she visits South Korea, the birthplace of the viral "K-beauty"– beloved for its multi-layer "glass skin" skincare regimens and high-tech sun creams.

The SpeciaList

(Credit: Chriselle Lim)

Chriselle Lim is a Korean American fashion stylist, entrepreneur and digital influencer. She founded the fashion and lifestyle blog The Chriselle Factor in 2011, leading to collaborations with luxury brands including Dior and Chanel.

"Beauty and self-care in Korea is a daily thing," says the fresh-faced and flawlessly stylish Lim, who spent her formative years in the glamorous South Korean capital and returns with her daughters each year. "It's not about hitting a certain age and then taking care of your skin. You just do it since you're a very young girl. As we're trying to reverse [sun damage] here in the States, in Korea, the women have been taught to protect themselves early on. We were always embarrassed about our moms taking us around in their crazy massive sun hats and their gloves. But now I get it. I've become that lady."

While innovative Korean products like collagen sheet masks continue to dominate the international market, Korea is also seeing an uptick in beauty tourism. Consumers can visit "skin clinics" for medical aesthetic treatments powered by ultra-modern Korean technologies; often not yet approved by the FDA. Adding to the appeal, patients can get several treatments – from Botox to Titanium skin lifting to liquid laser sun spot removal – in one sitting with jaw-dropping transformations and little downtime – compared to Western protocols, which require patients wait 28 days between treatments.

"I have a lot of followers that ask me for tips and where to go," says Lim. "It makes a lot of sense. One, the technology is there. And two, it's so much cheaper [than the US], at least by five times. The flight there, renting an Airbnb or a hotel; it actually makes a lot of sense because you are saving money in the long run."

Not that Lim ever needs a reason to visit Seoul. "It's a fast-paced city that is extremely clean, chic, sophisticated," she says. "Just imagine fashion and art and beauty all combined in one. It's one of those places I go whenever I'm feeling like I need inspiration."

Here is Lim's go-to plan for a self-care holiday in Seoul.

Gangnam, the stylish district made world-famous by a certain 2012 K-pop song, is considered Seoul's K-beauty and medical tourism hot spot – and it's where Lim's self-care holidays start. First stop: Eun Skin Clinic in the affluent Cheongdam neighbourhood, south of the Han River.

Tip:

"A tip that people don't realise when planning is that you have to see what side of the river [Han] these places are and try to plan accordingly," says Lim. "Because crossing that river can take so long; traffic is really bad, so you have to figure out the subway system or try to plan everything out in advance."

"They do incredible lasers, the best I've experienced," says Lim. "They speak really good English there, which is a big make or break for me because I'm not fluent in Korean. And because [the doctor] deals with a lot of English-speaking people, I think she realises that a lot of them are here to explore and have fun, so she doesn't want to be so aggressive with their face. They do a very customised approach."

Korean skin lasers, notes Lim, are so gentle they can even be layered on top of each other to compound their transformative effects.

"It's very, very gentle," says Lim of her most recent visit. "I did something called Ruby toning; helps with even skin tone and brightening. And there's another laser that I did called MeDioStar®, which is brightening and tightening. And then on top of that, I did PRP [platelet-rich plasma treatment]. And then I also did microneedling and then salmon DNA. It takes maybe an hour and a half to do."

She cautions: "The next day, if you get five to eight treatments, your skin will be slightly bruised, but it goes away within, I would say, 48 hours. [These lasers are] effective on the deeper surface level, but on the topical level, you can't really tell that you've gotten anything done… But then after I went home, and people were like, 'Wait, did you, did you do something to your face? ' And you're like, 'Okay, I think it's kicking in'."

Lim recommends visitors hit skin clinics at the........

© BBC