5 Products, 5 Minutes: My Ultimate Low-Effort Makeup Routine

I love makeup. I mean, who doesn’t? Makeup can be empowering. Makeup can also make you feel good about yourself. It doesn’t matter what you’re currently facing in your personal life, you put on that full beat, full face makeup and I swear you’ll feel good.

You get what I mean?

But I also enjoy going bare face and minimal makeup. As much as I love caking on products on my face, I am confident enough to face the world with just my skin and sunscreen. And mind you–I do not have as-flawless-as-egg face, if that’s what you’re wondering. I have blemishes too. I have trouble skin, as mentioned by the pharmacist at Guardian Pharmacy when I did skin analysis with them last month. (It was free, by the way, and I got free samples from Ceradan and La Roche Posay. Score!)

I’m going to share with you the products I use for a minimal makeup look that takes at most 10 minutes even when you’re going reaaaaaal slow. This is very low effort in my opinion as a makeup girlie who still wants to look a little bit doll up and presentable for that grocery + coffee run or for a quick breakfast date with your husband after sending the kids to school.

Low effort means using a powder base instead of liquid. I have combination oily skin which means there are areas of my face that are just dry as a desert if I don’t prep well which is why I absolutely love using liquid base as powder base tends to make me look cakey. But, my friends, let me introduce you to my favourite base product as of now that completely threw me off my game. It’s the Chanel Le Blanc Brightening Compact Foundation in the shade B20. When the SA tried it on me, I fell in love. it looked so smooth and it doesn’t look like I’m wearing powder at all and mind you at that time I had my makeup on for at least seven hours. It shouldn’t look good but it sure did look flawless.

Using this powder after sunscreen is just going to hide the redness on my face and makes it look so smooth. It’s not full coverage or anything, I would say it’s light to buildable but I love how it makes me look like I’m not wearing anything on my face. You couldn’t even see the powder sitting on top of my skin. I love it so much.

I have very dark brows so I resort to just using the Browit Setting Eyebrow Mascara in the shade #4 Dark Black Coffee. This product is very pigmented so you need to be very light-handed with it. I used to avoid this product due to that but as I learned how to use it, I adore it. I can easily do my brows in one minute–30 seconds each. It’s that easy.

I got my hands on the Rhode Pocket Blush in the shade Sleepy Girl. It’s the only blush I use since I got it a couple of months ago. It feels like skincare and it behaves like skincare. Obviously you can use a brush to apply it but sometimes when I really need to be out the door like five minutes ago, I just blend with my fingers and use whatever’s left as eyeshadow.

For mascara, I’m using the sample Rare Beauty Perfect Strokes Universal Volumizing Mascara in the shade Black that I got as samples from Sephora last month. With most mascaras, I notice after a few hours they would transfer to my under eyes but I did not notice that happening with the Rare Beauty. I will definitely be using it again and if it holds up, I might purchase the full size but so far, so good. It curls my lashes and separates them really well.

I finally threw out the MAC lipstick in Velvet Teddy that I got almost 10 years ago. Yikes. I can’t believe I had it for that long and had been holding on to it for a decade. I finished it years ago–just didn’t have the heart to throw it out until a few months ago. Fret not, my friends, I repurchased it last month and I forgot how obsessed I was with the lipstick. I suck at describing colours and scents but I’m sure you have been in one way or another stumbled upon other bloggers raving about the shade. It is cult favourite for a reason. If I could wear one lipstick for the rest of my life, it would be Velvet Teddy.

And that is my current low effort makeup routine. I don’t see this routine changing anytime soon because it’s effortless and I genuinely love all the products I’m using. Is your makeup routine similar to mine?