It’s cold, but you still want to be cute. Icicles are hanging off the car, and you only have five minutes to get your girlie on while the car heater blasts and you finish getting ready. What do you do? What are the most important parts of makeup to focus on when you’re in a rush, and how can you look bright and rosy in the dead of winter?

In the above video, I demonstrate exactly, step-by-step, how that is done, and in this article, I will cover the most important bits for the most important bits!

Pop On Vitamin C to Protect Your Skin from the Environment

Not only is it cold, but pollution is rampant and a main component of aging, both externally in skin care and internally in your diet. For example, using a vitamin C serum in the morning helps to not only protect your skin from negative environmental factors, it contributes to soft-aging and brightening, reduces hyperpigmentation and UV damage, and helps with collagen production.

The downside is that there are about eight different types of vitamin C, so you want to shop for either ascorbyl tetraisopalmitate or tetrahexyldecyl ascorbate in the ingredient deck. The best brands usually use one of these formulas, and you want at least 20% of this wonderful active ingredient, but take more if you can get it.

I use an 80% vitamin C serum, and a 70% vitamin C moisturizer, and in the video I apply a 20% Image MD Restoring Youth Serum that is a fabulous mid-range brand to save you some money.

Don’t Forget a Clean Diet

For dietary free-radical protection, eat delicious and beneficial foods like blueberries, broccoli, walnuts, spinach, potatoes, green tea, strawberries, beans, and my personal favorite, dark chocolate.

Because I live in Ecuador, I have access to some of the best dark chocolate you can buy. This is the perfect deal for me because the dark chocolate here has very little sugar, and also doesn’t irritate my stomach, the two prerequisites to my buying it. It’s an easy 10-minute walk from my place and if you can’t find me, I’m standing in the store drooling.

A Minimalistic Approach to Pretty

At heart, I’m lazy. I’m a lazy workaholic if that makes sense. In a five-minute makeup, there is no way I’m putting foundation all over my face, it just takes too long and who the heck cares anyway! Just focus on your T-zone and call it good, while layering extra product under your eyes if you’d like to avoid using too much concealer.

Also, I bypass any bronzer, contour, or unnecessary fiddling with my eyebrows, but you do what works best for your face and preferences.

For mature skin, for the most part, we need a pop of color, and some eyeliner to bring out our eyes. When I used to make-up talent at FOX and CNN in Washington D.C., sometimes I had only five minutes to prep a female on-camera talking head and those were the things I focused on.

I would add a vigorous amount of blush and lipstick, and a little eyeliner on the top lash line plus mascara and then toss them in front of the camera before I was yelled at for being slow. It’s amazing what you can do to avoid being yelled at by an over-caffeinated news producer.

How to Do an Eye Shadow Wash

In the video, I stick to a monochromatic look with cool, pinky tones, which makes the whole thing easier if you ask me. The eye shadow method I use is called a wash, and it’s a great technique to master not only to save time, but to look like you’re a makeup genius.

Just take a brush like the MAC 217 and apply a bright rose shade focusing on the crease and outer-most and inner-most section of the eye. If you have large lids, go ahead and swoosh it over the entire lid, and if you have smaller lids, keep the lid area minimal.

The trick here is blending, which is why the brush is important. If your brush is not good quality, you will not be able to manage this; also, if your eyeshadow is too cheap. I’m sorry to say that the cheaper brands are more difficult to work with, and this could be a major factor in the technique not working well.

Don’t Go Overboard

I loved the 1980s. The Bee Gees, disco, bell-bottoms, and loud makeup raged across nearly every western culture and we ate it up. Well, I ate it up. That being said, the 80s are over, and you can’t get away with having loud, garish, or overdone makeup anymore without people thinking you’re mental.

In this way, be certain that you spotlight one or two parts of your face, but not every part. For example, I prefer a stronger eye with this look, a medium tone lipstick, but a muted blush. In the video, I use a pink/brown blush so as not to compete with the eyeshadow, but you could just as easily don a bright blush and softer eye, it’s up to you.

Do you like glitter? As a glitter faery, I love to add a pop of glitter to the center of my eye, or on my cheekbone and collarbone, but those are extra steps and remember, your car is warming up out front of the house and you have places to go, people to see.

For fun, put on a bright scarf and lip gloss just to dazzle it up. Why Not? It’s cold, you are beautiful, and you and the glitter faeries in your now cozy car are ready to take on the world.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

What’s your 5-minute routine to look pretty in the winter? How do you fight pollution in food and skin care? Is there a makeup product you never forego?