Sometimes just being female is a little overwhelming. Pluck, shave, pedi, mani, and so on, just to look like some semblance of your pre-children self. Sometimes it just feels like too much to keep up with.
Here are some tips for keeping up with it all:
- Pluck a few hairs every morning or night as part of your routine rather than letting your brows get out of control and in need of an intense 30-minute session with the tweezers and a magnifying mirror or a trip to the nearest threading salon.
- Try a long-lasting polish like Revlon Colorstay. Use a base coat and top coat and it really will last for quite a while, especially on toes. You may want to freshen up a bit with another layer of top coat if you find yourself with a spare five minutes. If the edge chips, simply fill it in with more of the polish, let it dry, then paint a thin coat over the whole nail to blend it all together. That way you buy yourself a little more time before you have to remove the polish, soak, scrub, and start all over. I’ve been able to go about three weeks this way for toes, and almost two weeks on fingernails.
- Highlight under the top layer of hair. Keep your base shade close to your natural color and highlight strands just below the top layer so the roots stay hidden as they grow out and you have lighter strands peeking through the length of your hair. The ombre trend is still going strong for fall, so that’s another option that won’t require frequent touch-ups. For damaged hair, leave-in treatment oils like argan, Ojon Rare Blend Oil, and even Garnier Moroccan Sleek Oil can minimize the amount of time you need to spend with a treatment mask on your hair. While masks can require 30 minutes to hours of going nowhere, treatment oils soften and repair hair without a wait time.
- Whiten teeth at home while you’re in the shower and applying makeup. Try a product like Crest Whitestrips Advanced Vivid that only requires 30 minutes per day. They stay on well enough to shower, put on your makeup, do your hair, etc, without sliding around in your mouth and causing you to get distracted.
You might not have all the time to schedule appointments every six to eight weeks for your hair, and you might have to rely more on DIY manis and pedis in order to cut out drive time and get it all done at the end of the night while you’re catching up with the DVR, but you can still enjoy pampering yourself now that free time’s a lot scarcer.
Photo credit: Xanda
