Authors with Advice: A Mindful Beauty Secret: Make-Up with Mindfulness with Dr. Elizabeth Reid Boyd

Have you ever slapped on some make-up? Removed your mascara with angry strokes? Or glared at your reflection in the mirror?

How you apply your make-up is just as important as what you apply. If you’re treating yourself and your skin harshly, it’s going to show.

Make up with mindfulness instead. No more rushing through your skin care routine. This exercise from The Secrets of Mindful Beauty provides an easy way to practice mindfulness in everyday life, teaching you how to focus on your face in the way you deserve.

Mindfulness is a self-awareness skill that focuses on sensation, experiencing the present moment, and accepting things in a non-judgemental way. Applying makeup mindfully is one instance where this skill can be practiced. Applying and removing makeup is one area in our lives that often becomes automatic. As such, it is possible to miss the signs that we might be applying makeup incorrectly, or damaging our skin as we remove it. Using mindfulness is a great was to bring focus back to the present, and perhaps re-examine how we actually go about these automatic routines.

Applying Makeup Mindfully Exercise:

- Start in front of your bathroom mirror or dressing table, with all your makeup at hand. Try to keep distractions to a minimum (no music or TV in the background).

- Start your makeup routine, paying attention to each step you take. For example, your first step may be to apply moisturiser. Think about how the moisturiser feels on your skin when it is applied, and how it smells. Look at your reflection as you apply it, focusing on how you are applying it to your skin- are you rubbing it in harshly, or are you patting it on smoothly? Look at the facial expressions you make, are you frowning, crinkling up your eyes?

- Complete this exercise for each makeup step: applying foundation, mascara, lipstick and so on, focusing on the sensations you experience during your routine, what you see, smell and feel.

- This exercise can also be used when removing makeup. Placing attention on how we remove our makeup, and how are skin feels when we do, can also help us identify any rough treatment our skin might be receiving. Is your skin smarting or stinging after you have washed it? Is the delicate skin around your eyes burning slightly? Perhaps you are removing your foundation too harshly, or perhaps the toner you are using is too abrasive.

Make up with mindfulness and let the mirror reflect a happier, more beautiful you.

Some different approaches you can use -

Look One: Fresh and Natural

The natural world is an important source for mindfulness.

Look Two: Pre-Raphaelite Beauty

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Lady Lilith, circa 1872.

This image by Dante Gabriel Rossetti is of a woman intently attending to her beauty care.

Look Three: Boudoir

This look is suggestive of a woman’s bedroom, dressing room or boudoir.

Dr Elizabeth Reid Boyd has degrees in psychology and gender studies. She has taught interpersonal, communication, and personal development skills including meditation, self-awareness, self-care and mindfulness at the university level for almost two decades. She writes fiction as Eliza Redgold.

Connect with Dr. Elizabeth Reid Boyd:

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The Secrets of Mindful Beauty: Revolutionary Techniques in Anti-Aging and Self-Care

If you think the answer to anti-aging and looking good comes from a jar, a salon, or a surgical procedure: think again. The best beauty treatment is in your own mind.

Did you know

Depression can give you wrinkles

Insomnia can cause sagging skin

Anxiety can increase reddening and skin rashes

Stress can result in acne and hair loss

and much more?

Discover the secrets of mindful beauty. Lose your permanent frown. Smooth your worried brow without Botox. Turn your sag lines into smile lines. These age-defying techniques have been specially created for a happier, more beautiful you.

Mindful beauty is a way of applying the practices of mindfulness to our physical health and well-being. Many of our routines around beauty lend themselves to mindfulness, and this will not only enhance the experience, but also have ongoing positive beautifying effects by reducing the stress and anxiety that can affect how we look and feel.