Faced with being buried in an avalanche of beauty products, I had to make a decision. I needed a way to simplify my beauty routine. However, if you Google “simplify your beauty routine” you will find a bunch of useless tips that leave you with just as many products as before.
The only fool proof method is to get rid of pretty much everything and go rogue. Unfortunately, we live in a society where image is everything, and if your hair is frizzy, and you smell because you don’t wear deodorant, you may have a bit of a problem. I don’t plan on going rogue; I do, however, plan on going natural.
Basically, if you want to simplify your beauty routine, you have to let go of the beauty standards set by people trying to sell you something and determine your personal beauty standards. For me that means:
Not wearing makeup. Maybe there will be an occasion where I don a little eye liner, mascara and lip gloss, but that’s going to be it. Cover up, blush, eye shadow and the like are getting trashed. I found a great article on Loving Your Face Without Makeup.
Revamping my hairstyling routine. As an African-American woman, hair care is where I spend the most money and do the most work. I’m going to make a change by switching to higher quality, natural products. Instead of buying a shea butter product where shea butter is the 4th or 5th ingredient, I could make my own shea butter leave in conditioner with the real stuff. Then, I won’t need fifty thousand additional products to make up for where one product falls short because it is filled with chemicals and other garbage. (I could do an entire post on how I’m cutting back on my hair routine)
Picking one or 2 ways to remove hair. As ladies we must pretend that we don’t grow hair anywhere but on are heads and eyebrows. The fact of the matter this isn’t true. We are all hairy ladies. And I use nearly every method available for removing hair: I have a razor, an electric trimmer, an epilator, a depilatory (Nair), wax strips and tweezers. This is completely unnecessary. I’m not going to stop shaving my legs or pits, but I am going to pick a limited amount of ways to do it. Maybe you’ve always wanted to stop shaving your legs. If so, here is a good place to find inspiration.
The reality is, there are so many places where you can cut back and reduce your usage of beauty products. That might mean you’ll stop trying to hide signs of aging, stop painting your nails, or stop fighting your natural hair texture. I’m not going to detail them all here because Minimalist Beauty created a whole website on how she reduced her beauty product usage. (It’s a great resource, you should check it out.) You have to decide which avenues are right for you.
What I’m going to be doing while I prepare to move is trashing pretty much everything and finding alternative care products. I’d like to take a more natural and holistic approach to my personal care, and I believe I’ll be using far fewer products than I do now.
Just remember, you are beautiful the way you are, and you don’t need any product that tries to convince you aren’t beautiful without it.
Slow Paced (Living) in the United States 