Mommy Fast Beauty: Melissa and her Well Used 15 Minutes

When Christine told me that she was thinking of featuring some of her readers on her “Mommy Fast Friday” series I told her I thought that was a great idea. Then she totally surprised me by asking me to do it. I love this series and her blog in general so of course I said yes (even though I’ve never written a blog post before and I’m really, really nervous).

My name is Melissa and I’m a mom of 2 wonderful children who, unfortunately, inherited my oh-so-pleasant disposition in the morning. I’ll leave it up to your imagination what that must be like for my incredibly chipper and incredibly patient husband in the morning. Needless to say, between cajoling the two offspring into getting ready for school (followed up with even more cajoling) and getting myself ready, there’s not always much time for a full scale beauty regimen. I’ve never actually timed myself, so I was fairly pleased when I busted out the stopwatch on my phone to find that I could, in fact, get it done in just under 15 minutes.

Normally, if I truly only have 15 minutes to spend on hair and makeup in the morning, I’m only going to spend about 5 minutes drying my hair and throwing on a baseball cap. (This is one of the perks of being a sahm.) The remaining 10 minutes are going to be spent on makeup. When I broke out the stopwatch, it was definitely a hat kind of day. Sadly, I couldn’t get a good picture of my makeup because of the shadow caused by the hat. For picture purposes, I re-did my 10 minute makeup on a day I actually fixed my hair and that’s what you’ll see below.

On to the makeup!

When I am in a rush, the first thing in my makeup routine that gets slashed is foundation. I skip moisturizer, primer, foundation, and powder and go for the all in one BB cream. This summer I used the Garnier Skin Renew Miracle Skin Perfector BB Cream. I recently started using Skin79’s Hot Pink Super Plus BB Cream Triple Function. (Dear Asian makeup companies, Thank you. So much. Love, me and all the other American women obsessed with these) This one is a little more substantial, not only in texture, but also coverage, than the Garnier BB Cream, so I like it better going into the colder months.

Next up is cheeks. For any of you who read beauty blogs on a regular basis, you’ve seen the term “MLBB” which stands for My Lips, But Better. Well, I’ve come to refer to this blush as “MCBB” (My Cheeks, But Better). It’s the NYX powder blush in Angel (applied with Eco Tools Bamboo Blush Brush). It just gives my face a nice, warm, awake look. I love it and use it often.

For the eyes, I start with E.L.F. Eyelid Primer. Yes, the one that only costs $1. Here’s the deal: I love Urban Decay Primer Potion, but if I don’t need my eye shadow to last past 8-9pm (and I rarely do) I reach for this. It lasts, for me personally, nearly as long as the UDPP.

If you’re in a hurry, an eye shadow palette is the easiest way to get a coordinated look without a lot of thinking. Today I used the Urban Decay Naked 2 palette. Halfbaked on the lid (applied with Real Techniques Shading Brush), Snakebite in the crease (applied with Essence of Beauty Crease Brush), and Bootycall (my favorite!) to highlight the brow bone (applied with Real Techniques Base Shadow Brush). A little blending and voila! I then used Urban Decay Glide On Pencil in LSD (part of the Ocho Loco set). To finish off the eyes, I curl my lashes and apply mascara. Like Christine, I’m also a big fan of layering mascaras. I want length AND volume, yo. I start with a coat of Maybelline Illegal Length Fiber Extensions Mascara in Very Black. I follow that up with Maybelline Colossal Volume Mascara in Glam Black.

All that’s left to do is line my lips and slap on some lipstick! Here’s the final look

Thanks to Christine for inviting my to share my Mommy fast beauty routine. I hope you all enjoyed it! What are your favorite tricks for making your morning beauty routine super speedy? Do you have a favorite no brainer palette?

Thanks so much to Melissa for agreeing to be featured when I put her on the spot! Featuring readers was something I was thinking about, and when I was emailing with her (she was the winner of a recent giveaway), she thought it was a great idea. And then I basically forced her into being featured and not only was she nice about it, but she sent a great post! I can’t believe how much she squeezed into such a short period of time. If you’re interested in being featured as well, let me know!