Your 3 Minute Make Up Routine

Before I had kids I was late to everything. Always 5 minutes, nothing egregious, but still perpetually behind.

Now that I have kids, I am still late, but I wonder how the old me was only responsible for herself and still couldn’t manage to get out the door at a proper time.

Likely, old me was spending a lot of extra time on appearances. I do not believe there is anything wrong with wanting to look your best, but trying on several different shades of eyeshadow to determine which is the best fit for my current outfit is not something that I have time for anymore. But I also apparently didn’t really have time for that back then either (due to the constant tardiness).

Now that I have to get myself and a child ready, and let’s be honest most of the time I am responsible for my husband as well (does anyone else have a husband who’s alarm shockingly always fails on Saturday and Sunday?), I have had to nail down a quick makeup routine. Especially since I was not blessed with a face that requires no makeup to look effortlessly gorgeous like Blake Lively and Beyonce.

With a few months of practice, and cutting down on the number of products I use, I have gotten my makeup routine down to just 3 minutes. It is quick, simple and covers up all of the blemishes and dark circles. And I can usually find 3 minutes on any given morning to accomplish this between my child’s constant requests for food.

I am pretty religious about skin care which has served me pretty well into my late twenties. I don’t know when you are supposed to get wrinkles, but so far I have been blessed. Not so much so in the grey hair department. My stylist keeps talking about my natural highlights coming in, which I found out was not a compliment, but a reference to my increasing grey hairs.

Every morning I use a toner to be sure my face is clean before I clog up all my pores with makeup. I was gifted a bottle of ORIGINS Mega-Mushroom Skin Relief Micellar Cleaner a couple of years ago and it was a perfect match for my skin. It is gentle enough to use twice a day as a toner and strong enough to be a makeup remover. I just put a few drops on a cotton round, and I get the ones that have the little bumps on one side so they can double as a little exfoliator. A little bit goes a long way with this ORIGINS stuff so one bottle will last me a good 6-7 months.

Sun protection is no joke, especially on your face. I use a light moisturizer every morning with SPF in it. I have tried a few different moisturizers but I always come back to Neutrogena Oil-Free Moisturiser with SPF 15. It is really light so my face doesn’t feel greasy after I put it on, and it does give me great protection from the sun, which I hear is pretty essential to fighting off wrinkles.

These two steps take about 45 seconds.

After I have cleansed and moisturized, I move on to my eyes while the moisturizer dries. I have used the same brand of eyeliner for the last couple of years. The CoverGirl Perfect Point Eyeliner is my go to because it is a sure thing every time. I never have to sharpen it and I rarely have to take time to go back and fix it because it is so easy to apply. There is also a built-in smudger with this pencil, but I hardly use that because I am not skilled at the smokey eye. My smokey eyes always look like I have slept on them for a couple nights.

My go-to mascara came to me as a sample in a BirchBox delivery one month and it was much less clumpy than anything I had found in drugstores. I have been using W3LL PEOPLE – Expressionist Mascara for at least a year and I love how easy it is to apply as well as take off. And it adds a lot of volume to my eyelashes which is something I desperately need.

If I add eyeshadow, I have several Almay pallets that I play with. I like that the colors are already selected for me and they even tell me where on my eyelid I should put the shadows. Super easy and I don’t have to think about it.

I use a powder foundation because I don’t like how heavy cream foundations are. I need something light that just helps even out my skin color. I use Almay Smart Shade (in light/medium) and it is so great. I don’t get the feeling that it is clogging my pores and it doesn’t cake on my face at all. It is also super easy to apply which is important when I am getting ready at 5:45 AM.

I have been using the same shade of blush for years. I picked up Nars: Orgasm  when I was in high school because I read in a Teen Vogue (or probably Seventeen Magazine) that it matched every skin tone. I am sure that the product name had me super embarrassed when I checked out at Sephora, but who was I to object to the direction of Seventeen?

The magazine was right though because no matter how much my skin color varies (tan to pale), this blush compliments my skin.

I finish things off with a bronzer my mom gave me in college. It is Lancome Magic Bronzing Brush, and I know that bronzer may be very 2010, but I don’t understand highlighters and I love looking like I just got back from Cabo. So a couple of swipes of this bronzer on my cheekbones helps create the illusion that I have any color in my complexion.

There you have it. My 3-minute makeup routine. I do like trying out new products when I have time to play around in the evenings, so please share your favorite make up products in the comments below!