7 Essential Selfcare and Style Hacks for Busy Moms
In the chaos that happens every morning, selfcare and personal style can freefall to the bottom of your priority list — several notches below feeding and dressing the kiddos for the day’s agenda.
While there’s value in carving out a few minutes for yourself, it’s easier said than done. You could try getting up earlier, but that can feel like quicksand. You set a 5:00 am alarm, for example, reset it to 4:50 am, and then 4:40 am. At some point, you’ll either decide sleep is more important than brushing your hair or you’ll question the value of going to sleep at all.
A more sustainable solution for selfcare lies in finding balance. You need a beauty and style routine that’s low effort — but reliably encourages you to feel put together when you walk out the door. That put-together feeling isn’t just vanity, either. An extra shot of confidence calms you, even in the face of your impossible to-do list.
Here are seven self-care and style hacks to help you find that balance.
1. Invest in multi-use skincare
Multiuse skincare formulations save you time and money. An essential combo is the tinted daily moisturizer with SPF. It’s makeup and skin protection in one step. Second to that is a cleanser that removes makeup and tones your skin. You can also find products that cleanse, exfoliate, and brighten all at once.
CeraVe and Neutrogena both make affordable tinted daily moisturizers with SPF. Nivea Visage and NOONI have cleanser-makeup-remover- toner combos. And Urban Skin Rx has a brightener that also cleanses and exfoliates.
Once you find the products you love, save even more time by ordering them on Amazon’s subscribe-and-save or another autoshop program.
2. Perfect your natural look
Your daily cosmetics routine doesn’t have to involve fake eyelashes or baked-on, Kardashian-style makeup. You can feel beautiful and polished with a few strategic swipes of color. As for products, you shouldn’t need more than mascara, lip balm, and a multi-use color stick that’ll work for eyes, cheeks, and lips. (Budget brand e.l.f. makes one you can buy for $5.)
To find your best natural look, first identify your favorite facial feature. Your strong cheekbones? Or the shape of your eyes? Whatever it is, that’s what you’ll emphasize with color.
3. Wrinkle-free fabrics are your BFFs
There’s a reason athletic techwear calls my name every morning — these pieces are comfortable, and they don’t wrinkle.
You could build your signature mom style around joggers and running tops, with the addition of fashion-forward sneakers or sandals. But there are other wrinkle-free options. Jeans and lightweight blouses, for one. Or midi skirts and knit t-shirts.
Garments made of denim, polyester blends, and light knits tend to have minimal ironing needs. Lyocell, sold under brand name Tencel, is another fabric that resists wrinkles.
4. Upgrade your denim
Style doesn’t have to be hard. With the right pieces in your closet, dressing in a chic outfit isn’t time-consuming.
If you don’t have those “right pieces,” upgrading your jeans is a good starting point. Why? Because jeans are easy to pair with nearly anything in your closet.
You can take the DIY route for this upgrade, by taking scissors to the hemline. Or, less permanently, you can experiment with rolling or cuffing your old jeans for a new look.
Before you buy new jeans, experiment with different shapes, hemlines, and washes. Wide-legged, cropped, high-waisted, bootcut — these have more polish than a standard skinny or mom jean, but they’re as versatile.
To manage those style experiments without spending all day at the mall, you have two options. You can subscribe to Modern Mom Style Box and let the rental service deliver jeans to you. Or, if you’re an Amazon Prime member, you can use Prime Try Before You Buy to test out new styles in a low-commitment way.
5. Swap out your shoes
Shoes are another impactful way to step-up your wardrobe. If you’re hooked on dad sneakers, for example, it’s a small jump into trendier alternatives like Adidas Stan Smiths, Vejas, Superga, Converse, or Vans. If you wear flip-flops every day, you might move into to a leather slide or a flat-soled, sling back sandal instead.
Switching out your go-to shoe can upgrade almost very outfit in your closet.
6. Play with scarves
Colorful, lightweight scarves are incredibly useful when you have “nothing to wear.” Tie a fun scarf around your neck, for example, and no one will notice you’re re-wearing a t-shirt from earlier in the week. You can use a longer scarf as a fun belt — another hack to give old jeans a new identity. Or, wrap a scarf over your head or around a ponytail to camouflage messy hair. If you’re feeling really bold, tie a scarf tidily around your wrist or ankle for an unexpected pop of color.
7. Buff your nails
Nail polish can be very chic, but also a hassle. Once it chips — and it always does — you must either display chipped polish to the world or sit still for 20 minutes while a new coat dries.
An easier solution is to invest in a $2 buffing block from Target. You can buff those nails to a shine that’ll rival the most expensive clear polish you’ve ever seen. The best part is, that buffed shine won’t chip. Your nails will stay shiny until they break off or grow out.
Low-effort style
You can’t spend hours primping each morning. But you don’t have to rush out disheveled either. Find the middle ground with a low-effort routine that makes you feel fabulous and fierce. Heck, maybe your kids will sense something’s different and do less lollygagging when you ask them to grab their stuff. One can dream, right?
Catherine Brock, aka the Budget Fashionista, has been writing about fashion and finance for more than a decade. She’s a regular contributor for Motley Fool, has been featured on MSN Money and USA Today, and has appeared on Fox2 St. Louis, ABC7 Chicago, CBS2 Los Angeles, WGN Chicago, and WCPO Cincinnati.
