This one’s for Laura, and anyone else out there with a chronic illness that sometimes just needs to look in the mirror and go hey, I look healthy today. My sister always says there are two ends to the spectrum: people who are sick and don’t care how they look, and people who are sick and therefore want to look 100% put together. On bad days, my sister puts on pretty much a full face, and I’d bet it’s because it’s one thing you do have control over, and one thing that lets you pretend — just even for a little while — that life is normal.

*mini-disclaimer: I know that everyone is different, especially in severity of illness, and I don’t claim to have any sort of “expertise”… but this is the beauty routine we worked out, so hopefully some of you ladies can find it useful as well.

xx&

Alternate title: the five-minute face

Minute one:
Apply a luminizing primer all over. If you don’t have a luminizer, here’s a quick DIY: scrape some of your favourite shimmery clear-colour powder blush into your palm (preferably a sheer pink). Mix in your primer or moisturizer, then smooth all over the face. Alternately you can put a bit of moisturiser on the back of your hand, then pick up some shimmery cream blush with your fingertips. Blend and apply.
(Fibro doesn’t always exhibit itself on the face, so my sister doesn’t actually need to do this step — I added it in for other people, though, as a loss of “glow,” for lack of a better word, is common.)

Minute two:
Use your fingertips to smooth a creamy satin-finish or shimmery eyeshadow all over your lids. Keeping it sheer and/or skin-toned means that you don’t have to be as precise, but can still get a polished eye.
(Why not a brush? For those of you who lead “normal” lives, I think you’ll be surprised at this answer. On a bad day, people with something like Lyme or Fibro find it hard to even hold pens and pencils… so skipping the brush not only makes it faster, it makes it possible.)

Minute three:
Line the upper lashline. We usually use a powder and a fine slanted brush, then smudge it with an all-over eye brush or fingertips (so it doesn’t have to be perfect.)
Like with any eye, this is a great place for a pop of colour… it can be anything from normal ‘ol brown to a vivid violet. It’s also very easy to skip, though, so if you can’t hold the brush steadily enough that day — it’s no biggie.

Minute four:
Curl lashes. Apply mascara if desired. This won’t take a whole minute, so if you’d like, now would be the to apply concealer as well!

Minute five:
Again with your fingers, apply a cream or gel multi-use product on the apples of the cheeks and the lips. I mixed a bunch of these for my sister with Vaseline and pigments (check out this tutorial) — we ordered a bunch of lip-and-cheek-safe Fyrinnae pigments and blushes, then filled up the sample jars with Vaseline, melted, and mixed. (I’ll post photos of them another day.)

Tada! Five minutes and you’re done. It’s super-streamlined, uses brushes minimally, and can easily be taken on the go.

Another suggestion for keeping it all together? Get an empty quad, and fill it with one all-over shadow, one shadow to line with, one cream blush/balm, and one cream blush/luminizer. It’s light, portable, and can be all that you use on a daily basis!