Most women who style their hair and apply a full face of makeup on a daily basis spend at least an hour getting ready on any given day. That hour-plus is spent going through the motions of a tedious beauty routine that is most-likely boring, tiresome, and stressful when you’re in a hurry to get out the door on time in the morning.
Wouldn’t it be relieving to not wake up dreading your ho-hum boring beauty routine? How refreshing would it be to spend your time before work getting ready at a leisurely pace instead of frantically racing the clock? The truth is that the daily beauty routine you’ve perfected over the years probably doesn’t need to be as time-consuming or complicated as it is right now. Making your daily beauty schedule easier and faster is as effortless as incorporating a few simple tricks into your routine.
1. Mess Up Your Mascara
Putting on your mascara can be one of the most needlessly time-consuming and dread-inducing tasks in your daily beauty routine. It’s impossible to apply mascara evenly to your lashes without creating clumps or smearing black marks on your eyelids.
The mascara application process is tedious and frustrating. Instead of trying to apply your mascara neatly and evenly, just swipe several layers quickly onto your lashes using a sweeping motion. Don’t worry about getting black marks on your skin. Once your lashes are coated, use a toothpick to pick and comb through them to separate any clumps. Let your mascara dry for ten seconds and swipe a Q-tip soaked in makeup remover across your eyelids to remove any stray marks. This trick works best if you apply your mascara at the beginning instead of at the end of your makeup routine. That way, you don’t have to worry about rubbing off other makeup on your skin when you’re trying to wipe away excess mascara from your eyelids.
2. Sleep Through Styling
How much time and effort do you spend every morning running different products through your hair and praying they do what they’re supposed to do as quickly as possible? Try putting these products in your hair before you go to bed instead of after you wake up in the morning.
Common hair products like softening and smoothing gels, frizz-taming mousses, and dry shampoo make a bigger difference in your hair if they’re given time to take effect while you sleep. Applying these products right before you go to bed significantly cuts down your morning styling time and lets you start the day with fresh, soft, smooth hair.
3. Put Off Drying Your Hair
Blow-drying your hair is an annoying task that eats up a huge chunk of time in your routine. Most women spend upwards of ten to twenty minutes drying their hair, even if they’re just rough-drying it.
Cut down on the time and effort it takes to dry your hair by putting it off as long as possible. After you get out of the shower, wrap and secure your hair up in a microfiber towel. Eat breakfast, put on your makeup, and go about the rest of your routine. When you unwrap your hair, the microfiber towel will have absorbed much of the water in your hair. Blow-drying damp hair takes significantly less time than trying to make soaked, dripping hair bone dry.
4. Use Multi-Tasking Products
Many common beauty products have multiple purposes and perform more than one function at the same time. Using as many of these multi-tasking products as possible in your daily beauty routine helps you cut down on both the length of your routine and the number of products you have to rifle through to find the one you want to use.
One of the best multi-tasking beauty products is moisturizer that includes SPF. Using moisturizers with SPF 30 or higher allows you to apply two essential skin products at the same time. Plus, these moisturizers help ensure that you won’t forget to apply sunscreen. BB cream is another ideal multi-tasking product. Many BB creams are designed to act as a moisturizer, primer, and skin tint at the same time. On days when you want a natural makeup look, BB cream is all you really need to apply to your skin.
5. Take Care of Your Skin
Taking care of your skin in general makes your daily beauty routine much easier and much less frustrating. Your goal should be to wake up every morning with fresh, smooth skin. You don’t want to have to remedy problems like dry skin and chapped lips on the spot.
Establish a nightly skincare routine and stick to it religiously. Make sure that routine includes completely removing your makeup, washing your face, moisturizing, and exfoliating. No matter how tired you are, don’t stray from your routine. You’ll thank yourself when you’re not having to apply moisturizers and acne spot treatments while putting on your makeup.
6. Skip Steps
You might think that every part of your beauty routine is absolutely essential, but chances are good that it actually includes multiple unnecessary steps.
Instead of rubbing lotion all over your legs and arms after your shower, invest in a hydrating body wash instead to seal moisture into your skin. You can even skip washing your face in the morning. If you shower at night right before you go to bed, your skin will still be clean in the morning and washing it will only dry it out. Just spray your face with a toner when you wake up instead to make your skin feel fresh.
7. Have a Back-Up Plan
No matter how carefully you schedule your beauty routine, there will inevitably be days when you wake up late or get distracted or just run out of time or patience for some other reason.
In preparation for days like these, create a back-up plan that strips your routine down to its bare essentials and allows you to get ready as quickly as possible. Have a quick and easy yet presentable hairstyle in the back of your mind. Go through your makeup and select five or fewer products to grab and use when you’re very pressed for time. Creating a back-up plan can also help you recognize steps in your routine that you might not need at all.
You shouldn’t have to dread completing your daily beauty routine. Minimizing the time and effort your routine requires can help you stop thinking of your routine as a chore. Plus, simplifying and shortening your routine allows you to get a little more precious sleep in the morning.
