Water is good for you

Yup. We all know this, but it is only recently that I started making an effort to drink more water. So every morning I have a glass of water, I try to drink a litre throughout the day in work (plus whatever coffee gets made) and I have a glass before I go to bed.

Whether it actually makes a difference or is just a mind over matter thing - I don't really mind! It makes me feel better in myself, and I am sure my skin looks better too (although, this could equally be to do with my new skincare routine!) Plus it helps to reduce my hangover state! :)

I guess the point is that I have found a way to fit things I know I should be doing into my routine. It's easy and automatic. I make sure my litre bottle is filled and in the fridge before I leave work and I pick it up on my way to my desk in the morning.

Skincare and Make Up Routine

This is only day 2 of my new found skincare routines, but I figure it's as good a time as any to write them down so here goes.

Morning Routine
- Splash face with luke warm water (assuming I removed make-up the night before!)
- Dab on eye cream
- Moisturise face & neck with day cream
- Light layer of foundation
- Dusting of sparkly all-over-face powder or bronzer on cheek bones
- Cover eyelids with light base eye shadow
- Add a slightly darker shade on top
- Dab a bit of even darker eyeshdow to outside corner of eye
- Mascara
- Vaseline on lips, sometimes a dab of lipstick
- Liberal spray of perfume

Evening Routine
- Remove make up with eye-make remover
- Use 2-in-1 toner & cleanser
- Moisturise face & neck with night cream
- Moisturise hands with hand cream

This is highly likely to change over the coming weeks, but its a start, and I have managed to stick to it so far!

Feel free to comment below or link to a blog post with details of your routine or where you think I may be going wrong. :)

New Start

I tend to get quite stuck into things once I start them, so the first thing I wanted to do was go through all my make up, cosmetic and skin care products and sort them out. The photo above is everything I could find in a quick 5 minute dash around my house. I probably use one tenth of it on a regular basis - if that!

A bit of background before I carry on - I have been following Lottie's Finishing School Workshop the A-Z of how to become Feminine and Fabulous. This included sorting out my wardrobe (still in progress) and the latest post challenged us to wear mascara for a week. Although I do tend to wear make up, it's not something I do religously and I don't maintain a skin care routine. So I mentioned on Twitter that it was time to start using eye cream and apparently I should have been using it for a while. :) And that is what inspired this blog.

So, back to my make up. I grabbed everything I could find, I threw away everything that had gone a bit strange, was old or that I don't use. Then I selected the products that would become a part of my daily routine (including eye cream).

From left to right I have 2-in-1 cleanser & toner, lotion & eye perfector cream on top of my am/pm 'complete balance' moisturiser and eye make up remover. I'm sure I'll go into more detail on individual products at a later date. These are now in a box next to my bed ready for my before bed routine tonight.

I also separated out the make up that I tend to wear to work so that I don't have to go searching through all the rest of my make up in the morning and don't have any excuse to not wear it:

Again, I'll describe each product in a later post. But it gives you the general idea.

Then I sorted out an 'emergency' make up kit for my bag.

The main idea being that I don't have ay excuse to not wear make up. To not look nice. To not make an effort.

My plan for tonight was to give myself a bit of a manicure...but it's late now and I have no plans for tomorrow night, so it's something to look forward to on a Friday night in.

Good night. Time for my bedtime routine I guess! :)