By now, three months (3? 4? 12?) into quarantine, we all have our little quarantine rituals. We wake up, hydrate, have some breakfast… and slowly motivate ourselves into our home offices to get ready for yet another identical day. Then, maybe in the early evening, there’s a little ritual set aside to break up the monotony. Maybe it’s a quick walk outside; maybe it’s an afternoon workout or a Skype session.

As quarantine stretches on, many of us are facing the reality of going back: returning to “normal” life even though the risk is far from gone. In so many cases (mine included), the risk is higher now than ever — so maybe we ought to keep our quarantine rituals around for a smidge longer. Maybe we deserve to keep self-soothing; to continue drifting around the house in a silky-soft nightgown as we doomscroll the news.

A sexy ghost of a quarantine ritual

I keep having to wash the living room carpet, seen flopped in the back of this photo. It’s a weirdly methodical quarantine ritual: you soak; you wash; you rinse. And then you hope to god that it’ll dry fully this time, finally, so that you can stop re-scrubbing the damn mildew out of it.

Existence feels a little bit like that right now. You’re very blue, and you just have to keep scrubbing away at life, and you’ll occasionally get these bright, juicy little pops of life. For me, those pops include everything from a fresh-smelling carpet to a silky-soft nightgown. This one is from Lusomé (one of my favourites), and let me tell you… it is NOT flattering on my 5’2″ frame.

But you know what? I love it. I love that it makes me feel like a sexy ghost, and I love that it scooches up in photos for a sultry, effortless drape. It’s an integral part of my meditative quarantine rituals, and it makes me feel like maybe I should be drifting around an old house in a soft, wicking layer. Like maybe this is something I was made to do, rather than something I’m forced to do for fear of death. I love its excellently-cut neckline, and I love that its lightly padded cups don’t gape over my tiny breasts.

(I also love that my cat will lie down with me for any reason, throwing herself side-first onto the floor with gusto. It adds a certain degree of camaraderie to my fibro-sits on the lino.)

Snag your own Lusomé at their site — I also love their Daphne, which I’ve purchased in multiple colours. (It is, however, too actually-sexy to make you feel like you’re haunting your own life.)

Quarantine ritual skincare (of course)

The world isn’t getting any less complicated: our skin is only getting worse with time and stress. So, I’m happy to report that my best quarantine find is something that I already owned.

I started using the Neutrogena Light Therapy Acne Wand years ago, and I loved it. I loved it so much, in fact, that I kept it for sentiment’s sake even after its battery died out. This turned out to be the right move, because months after I thought it had died for good, my partner picked it up and went, “well, why don’t you just change the battery?”

Um—hold for record screech. The what now?!

Yes, dear listener: this effective little light therapy wand runs on one AAA battery. When the battery dies (and it will, because they ship with a dinky little off-brand guy in there), you can pop open the rear end and swap it out for a new one!

I do a little light therapy and a little spot of Rapid Clear whenever I get a zit, and for the most part, they’re gone by the morning. They’re a maskne miracle; quarantine rituals for stress-induced acne.

I delve back into my love for Neutrogena every summer, and this quarantine is no exception. I’m also loving their Hydro Boost sheet mask, which is seriously the best. It’s got this wonderful, thick, gelatinous texture — it feels like a $20 spa mask rather than a five-dollar drugstore one. And oh, boy, does it ever hydrate. I can lounge around in my house dress and this mask for ages, maximizing my household haunting aesthetic by 1000x until my skin is as bouncy and plump as this sheet mask.

Exfoliate by force

Nothing more needs to be said here. You’re stuck at home for 168 hours a week with your family members and significant others. Force them to scrub off their dead skin with this Neutrogena Bright Boost polish. Their face is nice, but by god, you are the one who has to look at it all day long, and you should get some say in how smooth or rough or hydrated it is.

(I swear, I didn’t mean to pile so many Neutrogena products into one post about quarantine rituals — it just happened. There were originally four other products in this post, but I’d stopped using each of them by the time I finally wrote it, and… well. Long live the drugstore!)

When they’re fresh and dewy and ready, hand them a great moisturizer. I’ve been scrubbing the germs off of my hands a lot—probably to a completely neurotic, unnecessary degree for someone who doesn’t heave the house at all anymore—so I’ve been reaching for my new favourite hand cream. It’s very good, but for the face, you really can’t beat Graydon’s Berry Rich, which I recently bought another two bottles of. So: Bright Boost and Berry Rich for the face; Bright Boost (or a coffee scrub) and Good Molecules for the hands.

Don’t be afraid to use force. It’s time to hydrate, meditate, and moisturize, team.

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Disclaimer: The products featured here were submitted, as usual, for editorial consideration only. They made it into a post by merit only!