Time for a Mom Glow Up? Try These Quick Beauty Tips for Busy Moms:

If you’re anything like me, you’ve learned a TON about time management and being efficient since becoming a parent. I seriously cannot believe how much time I used to waste on every. single. aspect. of my daily existence, from dealing with basic chores to getting up and out the door in the morning. Once I had kids, I suddenly found that all that time I used to fritter away was needed for managing these two small beings in my care. Gone were the days when my morning routine took forever, because there just weren’t enough hours in the day.

There’s no place where this holds true more than in the basic tasks of self-care that we all have to perform, day in and day out. (I’m not talking about those of you who are parents to newborns; if that’s you, I hereby give you permission to cut yourself a ton of slack for the first 6 months, if not the first year, of Baby’s existence!) Beauty for moms is NOT a contradiction in terms, but I don’t know a single mama who hasn’t streamlined her mom beauty routine significantly since giving birth. It IS doable, with these time saving beauty hacks.

Sometimes the easiest way to get a mom glow up is to just rethink how you approach your whole beauty routine, so that you can get great results in less time and with less effort (even on those mornings when you’re running on empty!). Sound good? Then read on:

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Life Hacks for Moms: Busy Mom Beauty Tips

A. Simplify Your Hair Care

If you still have a high-maintenance, time-consuming morning hair care routine, that is the first place to look when considering what your beauty hacks for your new mom routine might include.

Maybe mom-dom is the perfect excuse for a whole new look. A quick online search for easy hairstyles for moms should give you lots of inspo to take with you to the salon. There are plenty of ‘dos that look good without taking hours to get to that point, or even heavy daily upkeep.
When picking your new ‘do, consider your hair type and personal preferences also. If you have oily hair, or a daily hair wash is part of your wake-up routine that you don’t want to ditch, consider a short wash-n-go style. (It’s also worth looking into dry shampoo for those days when even that few minutes of hair washing isn’t in the cards.)
On the other hand, a longer cut gives you options that don’t involve daily hair washing. This is why I keep my hair long sometimes; it’s easy to pull back into a low ponytail, sweep off my temples with combs, or pull back with a barrette or headband for totally different looks for days after washing.
Got curly locks (as I do)? Adding some leave-in conditioner plus the right styling products, as well as sleeping on silk pillowcases, will keep your curls looking fresh and moisturized for days longer. Silk resists absorbing moisture, so your. curls won’t dry out or get frizzy; if they do, there are plenty of curl refresher sprays you can try.

B. Streamline Your Skincare Routine

But your new mom beauty tips should NOT end with simplifying your haircare. There are so many other ways you can hack your morning skincare routine, depending on your preferences and your tastes:

Do you really need twelve skincare products on your face in the morning? Consider how many you can ditch and/or combine. My fave is an anti-aging moisturizer with built-in SPF 30; most days, this and some lipstick or tinted lip balm are all I wear. (Unlike lipstick, it’s easy to get tinted lip balm on in two seconds without a mirror, and the effect is just as good.)
Other combos you might consider are products that work for both lips and cheeks or eyes and cheeks, combo foundation/under-eye concealer, tinted foundation and/or moisturizer, and/or a foundation that doubles as blush or finishing powder.
And keep a small to-go stash of your must-haves whenever you’re out and about. (Don’t leave it in your car, where temperature changes can be brutal to your products.) Whether it’s in the school drop-off line or in the parking lot at work, you can always steal a few minutes there to finish putting together your look for the day.
The one exception to leaving supplies in your car is a small toothbrush and travel-sized toothpaste. I’m often still working on my morning coffee when heading out for the day, so being able to brush my teeth quickly in the parking lot before applying my lipstick is huge!

C. Faking Wide-Awake When You’re Half-Asleep

Even with our best efforts to streamline into that Mama existence we weren’t born with, every mama knows there will be days when you need to know how to look more awake in the morning after a long night of parenting. I admit, I have a hard time faking this one; my fave shortcut to how to look more awake is to get everyone out the door to where they need to go (school for the kids, work for my husband) and then crawl back into bed for a few hours if I can. But this isn’t always an option, of course.

So – relying on the expertise of my village here – some of my mama friends swear that nothing fakes a “wide awake” look faster than false eyelashes, which are the “instant” counterpart to lash extensions (the latter being a service you get done in a salon, vs. DIYing at home). There are plenty of affordable strip lashes or magnetic lashes you can pop on in just a few minutes. They make your eyes look bright and open—even if you only slept four hours—and mean you can skip mascara and liner most days. It’s a hack that makes a huge impact, fast.

But then there’s the question of what to do after you remove them: When you use lash extensions (or false lashes) regularly – or even if you’re just a mama whose natural lashes are thin enough to make you feel like you need mascara every day – an even better hack is to get yourself more lush-looking lashes once you’re done with that next round of false eyelashes or extensions, so you don’t have to worry so much about supplementing your natural look.

Enter Plant-Based Eyelash Growth Serum:

Plant-based eyelash growth serum is a great option for repairing the effects of temporary eyelash supplementation. Plant-derived serums are the best choice for safely promoting lush, thick lash growth – especially after you’ve had lash extensions removed – because they skip the aggressive compounds that artificially force your hair cycle.

Even natural formulas can cause problems, though, if applied over adhesive residue or active inflammation. Always patch test on your inner wrist before using anything new near the eye area after an extended break from clean lash skin.

If you’ve just had extensions removed, you’ll need to wait 48-72 hours for the follicles to recover before applying your first dose. When applying, use the serum’s applicator brush or a clean disposable wand to draw one thin line at the base of your upper lash line, right where you’d wear eyeliner. Apply once daily, (ideally at night, so the formula sits undisturbed without other products or environmental interference).

For the first two weeks, don’t layer the serum over moisturizer or eye cream; those create a barrier that blocks absorption and traps active ingredients in ways that spawn small milia bumps. Don’t touch the lower lash line for the first few weeks post-removal; skin there is thinner and more reactive.

With consistent use, you should see results over 8-12 weeks. (More product applied more often doesn’t accelerate the process, and usually just cranks up irritation risk.)

D. Prep Ahead

While we’re talking about your beauty morning routine, it’s also a good idea to see if other parts of your morning routine could use a tune-up. Hence this next tip, which I used to do sometimes before I was a busy mama, but now I swear by. Why? Because it has saved my backside more than once in my Parenting Era. It boils down to two words: prep ahead.

This may go against every fiber of your being, but trust me: no matter how tired you are before you go to bed, a few minutes spent then preparing for the next day will make your life SO much easier come morning.

Heading out the door as a ball of stress is not a good look. Whatever little things you can do the night before will help save time and stress in the morning. And anything that saves you AM time and stress will help give everyone a head start on looking and feeling their best for the day ahead.

Here are some of my fave examples:

Checking the weather forecast and choosing your outfit(s) accordingly (and/or helping the kids choose their own with this knowledge);
Packing the kids’ lunches (or, for older kiddos, having them pack their own) – we like to do this while putting away dinner leftovers, to save even more time and effort;
Getting out needed school supplies, whether it’s special items for field trips, practice clothes/gear for after-school sports, etc.
Packing your own Mama bag for the day (even if that’s just topping off the diaper bag, or loading items-to-deal-with-while-out into your tote or the car);
For when my next-day routine will be unusual or earlier-than-usual, I even make myself a super-basic step-by-step checklist. True, I almost certainly won’t forget to do my morning shower or coffee, but writing them on the list and then being able to cross them off makes me feel as if I’ve already accomplished something! And having the next “to do” staring me in the face come sleepy morning means my brain doesn’t have to think when it’s running on less sleep and/or more stress than usual.

E. Basic Mom Self Care Tips

The remaining low-maintenance beauty hacks I’ve figured out over time involve broader mom self care tips as much as anything else. Everything in my life seems to run SO much better when I’m doing the little things, day in and day out, to make my own life easier and take better care of myself – and no amount of glow-up magic can erase tons of chronic stress as effectively as taking better care of yourself in the first place, as I’ve learned the hard way.

Special memo here to mamas of newborns/infants:

Again, if you’re a mama to the under-1 set, please cut yourself a LOT of slack (I promise, things get easier once they’re past that first birthday!). But otherwise, it’s worth checking your big-picture habits to see which of these might need a little tweaking, so your inner beauty is better able to shine through WITHOUT so many extra steps to remove the surface damage:

There’s no substituting for the basics of exercise, fresh air, balanced healthy meals, and especially a good night’s sleep. If these areas need some work, that’s always a good place to start seeing what small changes you can make.
Even the little things like staying hydrated throughout the day can affect how radiant your skin looks. (And I’m talking plenty of water in the mix, not just constant coffee or Diet Cokes or energy drinks.) If you can’t stand plain water, consider sugar-free flavor drops or drink mixes, or flavor cartridges like the Cirkul system (which my 16yo Kimmie recently tried after four different doctors told her she needed to triple her water intake for basic health).
And while we’re at it, if you’re not already using a daily moisturizer with a built-in SPF of at least 30, why not? This small simple morning hack will save you time and save your skin; this is the one I’ve been using for at least a decade now.

The bottom line:

Yes, there ARE shortcuts that work. Here’s hoping some of these low-maintenance beauty hacks can help you look put together even on those days when you feel as if you’re running on fumes!

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