My 5-Minute Routine

I’ve never been a big makeup person. When I do wear makeup, I go with a minimal amount because for me, there seems to be a fairly fine line between nothing at all, a slight tint, and the feeling of circus chique. Lipstick, I never wear, unless I know I’m going to be freezing (it covers the blue color), but I find when I do wear lipstick, that line is instantly crossed.

This in no way means that I have no clue on how to apply makeup or anything, I just don’t want to be able to feel like I’m wearing makeup. This is a huge ask, full coverage, or at least decent coverage, but without feeling any traces of wearing makeup…okay, cross your arms, wiggle your nose, and boop transport yourself into I Dream of Jeannie, never going to happen.

I Dream of Jeannie - TV show image

I know we all likely go through these varying stages in our lives, pre-teens, no makeup, or maybe a minute amount.

Teen, you start experimenting with your look a little more, so it can escalate depending on the crowd you gather with, maybe it’s a prep look, or the cheerleaders, or maybe you have taken a turn, and goth is the new pink for you.

Either way, we start to experiment with these varying looks, and then along the way our hormones kick in, and if you are one of the extremely lucky few that travel through your teens without a hint of a zit, well, kudos, that is not our story.

And when those awful, glaring beacons show up, what do we do? Cover it up. We add more and more products, because if it doesn’t eliminate the problem, it should at least hide the problem, right?

Unfortunately, it only makes it worse, and why is that? Because just like our lungs, our skin needs to breathe. Adding layer upon layer to our face essentially smothers our skin, clogs our pores, and causes the army of acne that started with that one little pimple.

And this is just the start of our journey. Here we are, fresh-faced, where, unless we do have an acne breakout, our makeup and products apply smoothly and do not settle into fine lines, wrinkles, etc., because there are none.

Now we fast forward to children or middle-aged, we have stressors in our lives, we don’t sleep as well as we used to, the bags are looking more like mountains under our eyes, and our hormones are back, now they are causing acne, rosacea, weird shit is happening, and there appears to be no end in sight.

Now what?

First instinct, you guessed it, layers upon layers of products to tackle the redness, the dark circles, the fine lines and wrinkles, and God forbid the acne. All this before we try to hide what is visible under another layer, this time tinted, maybe a cream, liquid, or in a powder format, but again, we have reverted to smothering our skin.

The breathing has stopped, and while some days, your face might look great, there will be a day with less sleep, more stress, a pimple, and then we are back to panic mode. We are constantly on the defensive with our skin.

I’m definitely not a doctor, and I can only speak to you from my own experience and findings from what I have tried and reviews from my own customers, but what if we tried a different approach?

What do you really have to lose?

My must-have products

I have started cutting back on my skincare. I know I already said I do the bare minimum, but I’ve cut back the routine you don’t see even further.

My routine went from washing with whatever I had in the shower for my face, to drying and using hyaluronic acid, an eye serum, an anti-aging serum, and either sereni glow (morning) or timeless beauty (night). Then follow up with makeup primer, concealer (when needed), and then powder foundation, eye shadow, and eyeliner.

This may not sound like a lot for some of you, but for me, it is a lot of steps for really one result: minimize the redness and puffiness.

So I just stopped all of it.

Now, instead of all of that, I wash my face with Fresh Start Duo (morning and night), spray my face afterwards with Rose Aloe Toner (morning and night), apply tinted moisturizer (morning), along with eyeliner and shadow, and at night I apply Timeless Beauty instead.

Note: I'm currently perfecting a tinted moisturizer in the studio—it’s not ready for the shop yet, but it’s the final piece of my minimalist puzzle!

This is what attempt number three looks like on my skin. I applied our new (still in testing!) tinted moisturizer this morning, and it’s finally giving me that 'breathable' coverage I’ve been searching for. No heavy foundation, no cakey powder—just skin that feels like skin.

That is the entire routine. Takes maybe 5 minutes.

I’m not trying to sell you on products; I’m just suggesting trying a minimalist approach to skincare.

Find that one item that you can’t live without (maybe two if there is one for morning and one for night), but shrug off the excess.

No one needs a Sephora in their bedroom or bathroom; you need space for yourself. Take a break, enjoy your life, breathe, and let your skin breathe also. You might just find that less is, in fact, more.