Here is a confession: I don't particularly enjoy taking care of my hair or skin, or putting on makeup. They are all chores for me. I do them for the results (I feel shiny and bouncy when I have when I have shiny, bouncy hair. And besides, I´ve had like 25 years of bad hair behind me). But it takes will power to be regular and consistent in my routine.
That's a weird confession for a beauty blogger to make. I think everyone imagines beauty bloggers enjoy nothing more than spending 8 hours a day on 17 different hair, skin, nail and eyelashes treatments. On the other side of the spectrum are busy, working women who see beauty routines as a time-sucking luxury they can't afford.
Does beautiful skin and hair come at a hight time tag ?
I thought about how much time do I spend on my skin care, hair care and makeup, and whether that´s more or less since switching from conventional products to my mix of home lab & kitchen shelf diy and store bought (after meticulous analysis) ?
I found out that I'm lazy, I love beauty shortcuts, and my beauty regimen is pretty streamlined.
Hair Care
I take more time to wash my hair since I co-wash, because the scalps has to be massaged really well. I wash my hair every 3rd day, and I hope when I'm done with my psoriasis med I will be washing on the 4th day or so.
I save time on styling -- I never blow dry, I finger-comb and scrunch (in my (tangly) case this is faster than using a comb or brush). My hairdresser gave me an unstructured, romantically messy look that doesn't ask for any styling. A couple of seconds to scrunch some flax-seed gel into my hair, and I'm good to go. I do need to go for a (free) trim for my bangs every 6 weeks or so. I don't have the patience to do hair masques very often (maybe once a month ?), and when I do I usually do other things around the house when I do.
Preparing the flax-seed gel takes just a few minutes every couple of weeks (I conserve it with citric acid), and I usually do it when I'm cooking other stuff. When I made my own shampoo, that took 15 minutes every 2 months or so. Totally worth it.
Since I started understanding my hair and what it needs, I don't need to use a bunch of products for frizz-control and shine. My scalp doesn't over-produce sebum so I don't need to shampoo everyday.
Then there have been one-time changes that did a lot for my hair --- like buying satin pillowcases, and a Bohn comb.
Skin care
Morning: a couple of seconds to moisturise. I don´t cleanse, because my dry-to-normal skin doesn´t produce much oil (if I do wake up with an oily T-zone, I take care of that with a wipe of toner.) Night: Oil-cleansing, give or take 2 minutes. A PHA serum every other day (30 seconds.) Microdermabrasion once a week (2 minutes). Mixing my oils, a toner and a moisturiser takes probably 20 minutes every month.
Epilating and tweezing is a major time-sucker. But maybe this is only because my epilator is ancient (it will soon be celebrating its 10-year anniversary).
I don't have cracked heels anymore, or very dry knees and elbows (thanks to better alimentation and gentler soaps) so I moisturise my body once a week. I should probably do this more often.
But the best things I do for my skin are no-time changes --- things that don't take up extra time. Mainly eating a lot of fresh, raw food, cutting down on salt and quitting coffee.
Makeup
My makeup time went up by 100% ! That's because I didn't use to wear any -- not because I had anything against makeup, but I never found anything that would look very natural on my face. I hate even the slightest sign of foundation on the skin and even the slightest feel of anything on it. Then I discovered mineral makeup, and it was everything I had dreamed of. My skin looks even and smooth. Then I realised that it looked like a canvas --- I started adding bronzer, blush, eyeshadow,lip gloss -- the works.
Still, applying mineral base is way faster than applying conventional base --- the blending is just so much faster (and this is not just my opinion).
I don't do nail polish. I love the way it looks, but I feel it takes to long to apply, and it looks tacky if you don't remove it as soon as it starts to chip.
Research
What I have not counted here: the time to research and to search. The time it takes to find out whether hair needs protein or not. The time it took to research products for co-washing. The time spent in looking for conditioners that don't have alcohol as their 2nd ingredient (still counting).
Fortunately, this is often a once (or two, or three) time investment. Things fall into place, I find the formulas that work for me. I hardly give it another thought after that. I think that this time is totally worth not going through the frustration and costs of randomly trying out yet another product (randomly, because you have no idea which ingredients you are looking for, and which you need to avoid). And being totally immune to beauty ads.
How much time do you spend on your beauty regimen ? Where do you splurge time and where do you scrimp ? Which is your favourite part ? Do I need a new epilator ?
