My alarm goes off at around 6:45 a.m. and for a long time that felt like the worst part of my day. Now it’s the part I actually look forward to — not because mornings got magically easier, but because I built a routine that meets me where I am instead of where I think I should be.
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I am not a doctor, nutritionist, or licensed healthcare provider. Everything I share is based on my personal experience. Always consult your healthcare provider before starting any new supplement, medication, or health routine.
The First Five Minutes
Before anything else, I splash cold water on my face using my Makeup Eraser — the pink reusable towel everyone on the internet has already told you about. I focus mostly around my eyes, where dried residue from the night before collects overnight.
Cold water wakes my face up faster than coffee wakes up the rest of me. It’s a small thing, but small things are basically my whole philosophy at this point.
The Step I Never Skip
If my morning falls apart and I only get to do one thing to my face, it’s the Garnier SkinActive Clearly Brighter Anti-Puff Eye Roller. As I’ve gotten older, a bad night’s sleep shows up on my face almost immediately, and this cold metal roller is the first thing I reach for. Some mornings I’ll also use a rose quartz gua sha stone from Target if I have a few extra minutes.
If sleep has been rough lately, I wrote about the whole wind-down process I use now in My Sleep Ritual for Anxious Minds — it’s made mornings like this a lot less common.
Eyes and Face Cream
Next comes a tiny amount of Froya Organics eye balm, pressed in with my pinky finger around my crow’s feet. Then I take a small amount of Froya Organics Anti-Age and Insane Glow Day Balm, rub it between my palms to warm it up, and apply it to my face, neck, and decolletage.
I always, always bring skincare down to my neck and chest. It’s one of the first places that shows age, and it’s the place everyone forgets. Some mornings, especially when I’m in a hurry, I’ll swap in L’Oreal Age Perfect Cell Renewal with SPF instead, because it saves me a separate sunscreen step.
Primer and a Little Color
For primer, I rotate between RMS Beauty ReEvolve Radiance Locking Primer, a ZO Skin Health product, or the NYX Bare With Me Cannabis Sativa Seed Oil Primer, which has the most perfect pink tint on my skin tone. After that, RMS Beauty Bronzer goes on my forehead near the hairline, cheekbones, jawline, and the tip of my nose, and NARS Orgasm blush goes on top of my cheekbones.
Brows, Lashes, and the 90s Regret
My brows are thin and overplucked from the 90s, which is a decision my teenage self made that I am still paying for. I fill them in with the Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Powder Duo, sometimes swapping in a brown tinted brow gel from Thrive Causemetics. I keep up with tweezers daily — brows and the faint hair above my lip — because letting it go a week is a visible mistake.
For eyes, I use Revlon ColorStay Liquid Liner in dark brown most days, which reads softer than black but still feels finished. Then Thrive Causemetics Liquid Lash Extensions Tubing Mascara in Black goes on last, in black.
Lips and Hair, in About Ninety Seconds
Naturium Phyto-Glow Lip Mask goes on last, or Neal’s Yard Remedies Wild Rose Beauty Balm if I want something a little more balm-like. I brush my hair, and if it’s been a couple of days since washing, Dove Volumizing Dry Shampoo buys me another day.
Here’s the truth: on the mornings when everything else falls apart, the non-negotiables are face cream, eyeliner, and mascara. That’s it. Everything else is a bonus, not a requirement.
What I Take Before I Eat Anything
I fast until noon — just water and black coffee — so my supplements all happen fasted, first thing. I take an ashwagandha (usually Gaia Herbs PRO liquid phyto-caps, sometimes Himalaya Organic caplets), my Vitamin D3 and K2 from Mary Ruth’s liquid spray, a Vitamin C spray from Garden of Life, and Country Life Easy Iron for anemia I was diagnosed with a few years ago.
On top of that: three capsules of Sports Research Omega-3 Fish Oil, which is non-GMO and wild caught, a Garden of Life women’s probiotic, Nature’s Bounty B-12 and Super B-Complex, Thorne Zinc Bisglycinate, a liquid Eidon Ionic Minerals selenium, and Gaia Herbs gelatinized Peruvian maca root for energy. I also take a prescription medication for inflammation every morning through the Ageless website — that one is between me and my doctor, and I’d encourage you to talk to yours before adding anything like it to your own routine.
This is a lot of capsules, I know. I go into exactly why I take each one, and which ones are actually doing something for my anxiety specifically, in The Supplement Stack That Actually Helps My Anxiety.
Breaking the Fast
Around noon I break my fast with bone broth, then real food. Before that first real meal, I try to eat something green first — a salad with a vinegar-based dressing — which is the one piece of the Glucose Goddess method I’ve actually kept up with. It helps blunt the blood sugar spike that used to leave me shaky and irritable by 2 p.m.
The Actual Point of All This
None of this fixed my life. What fixed my life was leaving a marriage that wasn’t working, getting a job that gave me my footing back, and doing the slow, unglamorous work of therapy every week. This routine didn’t cause any of that.
What it does is give me forty-five minutes in the morning where I take care of myself on purpose, before the day starts taking things from me. Some mornings that’s the only forty-five minutes I get. It’s enough.