In Taiwan, there is a saying that gets mentioned consistently in the beauty world "没有丑女人， 只有懒女人". This is true as anyone can look good and presentable with a bit of time and lots of effort. However, in our current lifestyles where most of us work, we don't really have a lot of time, not to mention $$$. Give anyone $$$ and we will all be able to splurge and make ourselves look good like the celebrities!
I like to look good and love the whole pampering process, but don't have a lot of time (not to mention the occasional laziness). Having to take care of every part of yourself from top to toe requires a lot of effort. Most people only focus on perhaps their hands or face or hair and other parts gets neglected. :(
Therefore, we cannot be neglecting any part of ourselves (this includes our hearts and minds too!) from the beauty process. Along the way while I woefully keep discovering more neglected parts, I try to combine as many beauty processes together to save time. Here are a few of my tips for a time saving routine while your skin still gets the benefits that it needs.
Shower
You can include a lot of steps during your daily showers that only increases your shower time by a few minutes but when done every day saves you a lot more time and $$$ in the long run. So, below is my routine.
Take a shower as usual.
If you're washing you hair, once you have the conditioner in your hair, you can start to wash your body while waiting for the conditioner to do its magic!
Loofah Towel/ Exfoliating Gloves
Use a loofah/exfoliating gloves/exfoliating cloth and pour your body wash on it and lather and scrub your entire body. There is no need to scrub too vigorously as this is done on a regular basis so it is meant to be a mild exfoliation. This saves you from having to exfoliate once a week with a body scrub. You can do this everyday or once every other day and you will find that your skin is smoother and looks better as well as the problem areas such as your knees and elbows will be smooth and not dry and crackly. Make sure that you focus more on the elbows and knees as well as any other parts which is darker or thicker. I alternate between the gloves and the cloth as the cloth allows me to scrub my back too which can be forgotten.
Foot File
Once you finish showering, wipe the soles of your feet either with your towel or the bathmat so that it is dry, pick up your foot file such as those from Scholl and proceed to scrub the soles of your feet. As you skin has already soften during your shower, exfoliating with the foot file is easier in getting rid of dry skin. This saves you from setting a time to do a pedicure in the salon or having to do a whole pedicure routine separately. If you do this everyday, you don't even have to spend too much time or strength in the exfoliating as the soles of your feet will not get a chance to accumulate dead hard skin over a long period of time. After completing the exfoliation, you just need to pop back into the shower to wash off the dead skin from your feet and clean your foot file.
Clay Mask
If the day happens to be the day that you use a mask, ensure that you shower with warm water and the last thing that you do is wash your face in the shower. Saves time and water. After drying yourself, you can then put on the mask for your face.
Why do you put on a mask at this time? The heat from the warm water would have open up your pores and allow your mask to work better. This saves you from having to set up a whole different time to use your masks and steps such as placing a warm cloth on your face for 10 minutes to open up your pores as that would have been achieved during your shower.
I always start with a clay mask to draw out the impurities from my skin first. I find that my clay masks works much better this way rather than when I just use it at a separate time from my shower as I'm too lazy to use a warm cloth and placed it over my face and wait for 10 minutes for my pores to open up. Because of that, I end up not having my pores open for the clay mask.
Body Lotion
You will still be in the bathroom after applying your clay mask and while waiting for it to dry, you can start moisturising your body. This saves you time as you are doing 2 things at the same time. Your body is also able to absorb your moisturiser more readily after a shower than any other time.
Vitamin C Mask/ Essence Mask
After washing off the clay mask, I will then proceed to use a moisturising mask if my skin is dry or whitening masks or any sort of masks which is meant to be infuse goodness back into your skin. You want to do this as your clay mask have already drawn out the impurities so your skin is now clean and able to absorb more goodness. If you use the clay mask one day and the other type of goodness mask another day, the effect is not as good as on the other day when you just cleanse and apply say your whitening mask, there is still dirt and impurities in your skin that is in the way or partially blocking. Using both type of mask consecutively one after another will also save you from having to set aside time on another day of the week just to apply your mask.
After this mask is done, I will then finish off with toner or moisturiser or any other essence that you use.
If it happens that you washed you hair as well, I will now take off the towel that was wrapping my hair all this while and proceed to blow dry. Your towel would have absorb a lot of the excess water so that you hair will be semi dry by now. Less time spend needing to blow dry etc...
Finally, the last thing is washing your hands and proceed to moisturise them.
This is how I save time while still ensuring that I maximise the benefits on a regular basis. It might seem like a long list of steps but on a regular day, there is only Steps 1, 3, 4 & 6.
Other occasions where you can also save time.
Gym/Spa
If your gym happens to have a steam room, pop in there after your workout. Of course shampoo your hair first and apply hair treatment and then proceed happily to the steam room for about 15 minutes. The heat and moisture from the steam room works similarly to those steam machines that is used in the salon when you go for a hair treatment. By doing this, you save $$$ and time by not having to go to a salon to get it done. This is not recommended in a sauna as a sauna is dry and will potentially have an adverse effect instead.
If you happen to go to a hot spa or hot bath, come out from it after 10 minutes or so and put on your clay mask and go back in. The heat would have open up the pores and your mask is able to work even better. You might get some stares from people but is something you can hopefully live with. You might even find that they will start following you as well. TeeHee.
Moisturising
A lot of times you need to wait a while for your moisturiser to absorb before you can do anything. Or worse still, if you don't even realise that your moisturiser hasn't fully absorb and you start doing stuff and the moisturiser just gets rub off instead of being absorbed by your skin. One way of speeding this up is to always place the moisturiser on your palms first. Rub your palms together in a fast motion quickly about 30-40 times so that the moisturiser is heated up. You can then massage onto your skin. I heard about this and tried it and find that it really does work. My skin isn't as sticky and dries up quickly and I know my money spent on the moisturisers is right where it should be. You also get a pretty good workout for your biceps by doing this.
Hopefully, this helps you and do share if you have any time saving tips too.
