Growing up in the USA, service meant a company or individual that you were paying to help provide you with some necessary thing that you couldn’t exactly do on your own. Examples of this might be internet/wireless service, telephone service, customer service and restaurant service. This sort of thing also exists in Korea, don’t get me wrong, but the word “service” or as it’s pronounced here “service-uh” is something altogether special and even more wonderful.

“Service-uh” in Korea means free stuff. Basically it’s like a gift with purchase. Some common examples of this are a 1+1 or buy one get one free item at the convenience store, a free cola or extra side dish at a restaurant, or best of all the free samples you get at makeup stores!

I’ve been wanting to make this video for awhile, or at least one similar to this and I finally got around to actually going to the Korean Cosmetics shop Tony Moly to pick up some necessities and something to bring back for my awesome mother-in-law. And you guys, I know that makeup companies give out samples so that you can try them out and come back and buy more stuff (my mom used to sell Mary Kay). But seriously, even I was blown away by all of the awesome free stuff that I got with my purchases. Some of the items (BB cream, multi-cell emulsion stuff, snail cream and body lotion) were in large enough containers that I feel like I doubled my money’s worth! It also makes really great gifts to give to friends and family back in the USA, whom after 5 years its hard to buy for… you can only get so many “Korean” presents.

Anyways, if you’re going to be traveling to or living in Korea anytime in the next year I strongly suggest walking into a cosmetics store. Even for guys you can find some great lotions and skin care stuff and won’t be looked at as super weird because Korean guys take care of their skin. Regardless, Korean cosmetics are pretty high quality stuff and usually have some pretty adorable packaging. My favorite stores that I recommend are Tony Moly, Skin Food, After School and Clio but there’s a lot of fantastic places and I’ve yet to hear of a really bad one. So yeah, give it a shot and here’s to free “service-uh!”