Bliss In Imperfection: Five Minute Face, makeup the tomboy way

My Five minute face, isn't a new mom thing. I think my ability to be quick getting ready stems from growing up as a tomboy who had better things to do than spend time worrying about how I looked. That coupled with my propensity for always being late. Either way, I've never been one to idle in front of the mirror.

My first trip to the make up counter wasn't until my freshman year of college during fall break. My Mom and I went to the clinique counter and off I went with my safe brown eye shadow. When I got married in 2004, I had my makeup professionally done and loved it. She used all bobbi brown and from that point forward I was hooked. Her cosmetics are awesome! Frugalicious however they are not. The last part to me is key, so unless I'm gifted some bobbi brown, I tend to do the frugal thing and shop either at the cosmetic store at the leesburg outlets for bobbi brown or I buy similar less expensive products at Ulta.

Coming from my tomboy background, while the bobbi brown concealers and foundation are nice, they are too high maintenance for me. Now I stick with her eye shadows, eye liners, brushes and face lotions.

Here is my five minute routine and my favorite products:

Step 1: Clean my face! I love a good sudsy soft face wash. In order for your makeup to look good, your skin has to be clean! Paul surprised me when I was pregnant and bought the murad facial cleanser I was ogling after and unwilling to fork over the money to get. Normally though, since I have problem free skin, I'm not picky. As long as the facial soap is sudsy and leaves my skin soft and feeling clean I like it. My normal over the counter go to is Garnier Moisture Rescue (feels very similar to Murad) and is also pregnancy and breastfeeding friendly.

Step 2: Moisturize! You also can't have good looking makeup with the second step to ensuring a good base, moisturizing. My favorite affordable face lotion is Garnier Moisture Rescue with SPF 15
but if I had a disposable income, I'd use the bobbi brown vitamin enriched face base. It is my absolute favorite beauty product. It feels and smells so good!

Step 3: Set the stage: Foundation! I use bare minerals matte spf 15 foundation. This is fairly inexpensive and lasts me close to a year per container. What I like about it is, you really can't mess it up (I apply it sans mirror sometimes). The color blends so well into your skin that even with my skin doing a racial 180 between the winter and summer seasons, I can get away with using the same shade. The product really just smooths over any blotchiness you have in your skin. I like the product even more now that you can seal the top shut after every use. Before they did this, it was MESSY!

I skip ahead to Step 7 if I'm really in a rush.

Step 4: Eye Shadow: I love bobbi brown and mac eye shadows but for the sake of time management, money and makeup bag cleanliness, I've been using pallete's of colors. One is from elizabeth arden that I got in one of the bonus time sets from the cosmetics company outlet, the other is from Stilla. I've also got my eye on the Urban Decay Naked 2 palette, but am waiting for a good coupon. I love having all the colors you'd want in one handy place. Helps to do the smokey eye look without having to fiddle around opening a bunch of different containers as well as saving a bundle.

Step 5: Eye Liner: Bobbi Brown and Mac again are clear winners for me in this category. I love their gel eye liners. I wasn't too thrilled when I somehow misplaced my almost new pot however and couldn't bring myself to fork over the $20 again for another one. I went to Ulta and tried out the tarte liner and have loved it. I also tried the liner from bare minerals and absolutely hated it. It looks nice while it is on, but it is way to MESSY.

Step 6: Eye Lash Curler: no explanation needed. Though for an extra bang, warm up the curler under your hair dryer then curl your lashes.

Step 7: Mascara: My favorite is the bare minerals Flawless Definition Volumizing Mascara that I've luckily now gotten two free samples of. I'm blessed with super long lashes so again I don't have to be really picky here. I use whatever free waterproof black mascara sample I get.

Step 8: Lipstick: Not picky here at all. I use EOS chapstick as a base, then just apply a simple color that isn't sticky. The new lip crayons that are out are really smooth and long lasting. I've been using a LipSurgence lip tint by tarte that I got for free with my eye liner purchase from ulta.