The bare necessities skincare routine

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“Look for the bare necessities

The simple bare necessities

Forget about your worries and your strife

I mean the bare necessities

Old Mother Nature’s recipes

That brings the bare necessities of life”

With being quarantined at home I have found myself signing old Disney songs. This one in particular has meaning on another level. Have you found that your personal care routine has had a major shift? For me, the biggest change has been around showering. My skin and hair care routine already incredibly minimal have now been attached to showering too. Not that showering was very complicated before, but showering has become some what become optional. I must point out the optional part only applies when I absolutely don’t leave my apartment, not when I go out, got to stay safe! But the interesting thing I have learned with opting the same minimalist attitude to showering as I do with my skin and hair, my body truly does clean itself, “old mother nature’s recipes.” See what I mean it has meaning on so many levels!

For example, after I shower, I always feel dry, which makes sense, the soap and water combined strip much of the natural body oils that keep my skin moisturized. Post showering, I have to apply body lotion to eliminate dryness. But the not showering, I find my skin is just as smooth, self-moisturized.

I have had the minimalist approach to skin and hair for a long time, for the exact same reason. I wash my face to remove the excess oils so that my skin can keep performing its functions, but it is not 10 steps, it is just the use of Face Gems, and that’s it. Nothing before or after. In the shower, I just pop, drop and wash. When it comes to hair care, just that too, but with shampoo! And my hair and skin are always happy.

In chatting with my friends, and now over-sharing everything, it seems I was not alone! I have friends who used to apply daily makeup or had long routines that have completely stopped, my husband has let his beard go and they all said how freeing it feels. They have not only felt more at ease, but also psychologically more like themselves, and more so their skin is better than ever! I asked them why was their routine so complicated. Answers ranged from that is what experts made it seem I needed to do, I thought it would help my skin, and versions along those lines. The experts who they were referring to were bloggers and beauty editors. And while these experts do see and try a lot of different products, it is their job; which also entails promoting products. In fact, most dermatologist encourage to follow a minimalist beauty routine.

But I realized the skin couldn’t just be better because of the decrease in the number of ingredients being applied. There had to be something else. I realized there was another common factor amongst us: our lifestyle had significantly improved. We may have been starved of social interaction, BUT, we were all sleeping better, in an excuse to get out of the house we were working out more, and the biggest of all, we were all eating better. We often forget the skin is an organ. And caring for it means outside-in (the products you use on it) and inside-out (lifestyle choices like food, stress and sleep). It seems we finally got it right: few ingredients and healthy life choices, no wonder the skin is happy singing Baloo’s song.

Besides the happier skin, the minimalist routine has helped people feel like themselves, feel happy from within and more self-accepting. I think that’s what is most precious here. Majority of marketing around beauty products is to make us feel better, feel more comfortable in our own skin, but if going down a minimalist approach has the same result, then why use make-up or keep 10-step routines?

I say, if not showering, scruffy beards and 1 step products result in us respecting our body, mind and planet, then:

“Look for the bare necessities

The simple bare necessities

Forget about your worries and your strife

I mean the bare necessities

Old Mother Nature’s recipes

That brings the bare necessities of life.”

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