11 Beauty Hacks To Speed Up Your Morning Routine

If there was one wish that almost everyone could agree on, I'd be willing to hedge my bets on "a good night's sleep" being at or near the top of the list. One of the best ways to increase your hours spent peacefully dreaming is to save time in the morning by simplifying your beauty routine.

We can spend a good chunk of our morning on our grooming: I use up at least 45 minutes every morning between my beauty routine that includes showering, doing my hair, and putting on makeup. And that's on days where I'm using a lighter hand and minimal products! There's no reason to feel bad about taking time to make you feel like yourself, spending hours on primping, or wanting to look a certain way. However, there are mornings where sleep takes priority or I just have too many things to get done before I spring out the door.

Whether you're looking to save an hour, half an hour, or a few minutes; there are definitely some easy and creative ways to get your head on the pillow a little longer and still feel like your fabulous self. Here are 11 morning beauty hacks that'll make getting ready go a lot more quickly.

1. Let Your Hair Do Itself

Pick a hairstyle that needs to set — preferably without any clips or anything that would be painful to sleep on — and let it do so while you sleep. Wash and style it the night before and touch up any greasy spots with dry shampoo the next morning. My tutorial for heat-free beach waves is the perfect candidate for waking up to perfect hair and getting an extra hour in bed instead.

2. Wake Up Already Moisturized

If your bod needs heavy duty moisturizer in the morning, slather yourself in a rich lotion the night before to allow the lotion extra time to sink in and shave time off of your morning routine. There are special moisturizing sleep socks and moisturizing sleep gloves, but this works pretty much anywhere you have skin.

3. Condition In Your Sleep

The same thing that goes for your body also goes for your hair when it comes to saving as much time as possible. If you're going to wash your hair the next day, apply a luxurious repairing hair mask and sleep with it on. Going to skip on the shower? Apply a light hair oil to the ends only before bed for softer, bouncier hair when you wake up.

4. Do Your Makeup Last

For me, makeup is the most time-consuming part of my morning routine. My instinct is to do it first and get it out of the way, but doing it last is a huge time-saver. By giving your skin extra makeup-free time and there's less of a chance you're going to smudge or need re-application before you leave the house. In the morning I want to be eating up tofu scramble, not time.

5. Use Your Commute For Finishing Touches

Don't be that person who clips their nails on the train (ew), but do be that person who covertly moisturizes their cuticles on the train or at a red light. As long as it doesn't cause a disturbance to others or cause danger, then use your commute to add those little finishing touches. You can still listen to a podcast while you do a little lip scrub.

6. Skip The Shower

Some of you might be grossed out by this, but it's the easiest way to lose 20 minutes or more off of your morning routine: Don't shower. If you shower before you go to bed and you're not sweating a ton while you sleep, then you should be good to go in the morning with a bit of a freshening up. Spritz your hair with a styling spray to liven it up or use dry shampoo/conditioner if needed. Wash your face as normal and use a washcloth or disposable wipe to clean extra-warm/sweaty areas.

You definitely won't feel gross and I dare you to try it on those days when 20 minutes is the difference between waking up before the sun or waking up to its gentle rays.

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7. Look For Quick Fixes

I can't even tell you how many times I've been late because my nail polish chipped and I spent 25 minutes scrubbing off black polish before work. It's happen more than three times, easily. Instead of making my dumb mistakes, just look for quick fixes now and deal with the issue more completely when you have time.

Touch up chipped manis instead of removing them, have Q-Tips soaked in makeup remover ready for eyeliner fails, add a few extra bobby pins to your style now so you're not dealing with a hairdo that's fallen out on your way to the bus, and carry a spot treating pen to treat spills instead of changing your entire outfit.

Try to observe what ends up slowing you down and be prepared. Your day will be so much better if you quickly fix your problem instead of throwing off your whole schedule for a beauty emergency.

8. Use An Oil-Based Scrub

If you are gonna shower in the morning and forgot to moisturize the night before, use an oil-based scrub to slough your skin and deposit moisture. Skipping that step and the drying time will give you a few extra minutes to grab that much-needed coffee on the way to work.

9. Deal With Blemishes The Night Before

Use an overnight spot treatment to shrink, de-puff, dry out, and reduce redness in pimples. This will make them easier to cover up with makeup (if that's your thing), saving you time there and keeping you from entering the rabbit hole that is skin picking. That game has no winners — not only does it take up a ton of time, but picking is damaging to your skin.

10. Wipes Are Your Best Friends

I am all for long, luxurious showers and a good seven-step skincare routine, but on those mornings when you just need to be up and out the door, there are nothing better than wipes. You can get facial cleansing wipes, toning wipes, lotion wipes, and even underarm deodorant wipes. That's, like, a 10-swipe and out the door kinda routine. Tell me you can't get behind that.

11. Plan A Weekly Maintenance Night

All these hacks and shortcuts work best if you don't have to trim your bangs, shave your legs, cut and shape your nails, wax your armpits, or whatever time-consuming beauty rituals you regularly take part in. It's easier to run your razor over conditioner-covered legs in five minutes every other day when you're not working through a bunch of hair or trying to detangle the rat's nest that your parched strands have become. If you set aside a pampering night to take care of the bigger self-care projects, you'll be able to save time during the weekday mornings.

With a little planning and a little compromise, it's actually pretty easy to shave enough minutes off of your morning routine that you can save for things that are going to put you in a really good mood: sleep, Netflix, burritos, breakfast (breakfast burritos?), running errands, or coffee.

Images: Jodie Layne (1); Courtesy Brands; Pexels