My mom enjoys Korean dramas, Sudoku puzzles, and extracting blackheads. That’s right, those annoying little black dots that appear when your pores get clogged but stay open. When I was a teenager, I had acne on my back (“bacne”), so my mom used to beg me to let her squeeze out my blackheads. She was excited for me when I got into college, she was happy when I made her favorite scones, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen her more delighted than when I grudgingly agreed…

I don’t really like to return things—probably the result of a mixture of laziness and fear of being shamed at the store. My dad, on the other hand, has no qualms about standing in line at Costco to return a bunch of things every week. He has also mastered the art of reattaching price tags to clothing items with Scotch tape. I’d rather live with a disappointing product than bring it back to the store to ask for a refund, unless the product was inaccurately advertised, defective, or…

I splurged a bit on a higher-end moisturizer about a week ago: Laneige Water Bank Moisture Cream. I have to admit that the beautiful packaging was 90 percent of the reason I reached for this moisturizer over any of the other options at Sephora. I’d say that this is a step above my normal drug store brands like CeraVe and Cetaphil, but still a tier below more premium options like Sunday Riley and Drunk Elephant. Laneige is the sister company of AmorePacific, which is a luxe Korean beauty…