Today is Mother’s Day here. It seems that Mother’s Day is celebrated at different times in some other parts of the world but lets just play along shall we?
I don’t usually fall in with the whole “xx Day” concept but I was talking to some people in the past week and we were talking about what interested us in terms of beauty and how we had that interest. It turns out, quite a few of us had been influenced by our Mums!
So I thought it would be fun to see if you too felt the same way. How has your Mum influenced your beauty routine; or to put it the other way around, how has your beauty routine been influenced by your Mum? Did she buy you your first lipstick? Did she pick out skincare for you?
In my case, I think the biggest influence my Mum has had on my beauty routine is in my interest in skincare. Mum didn’t wear a lot of makeup and when she did, it was only some powder, blush and lipstick and that was also only to work, not otherwise. Perhaps that’s where my love for blush and lipstick stem from. Its what I started with, and also the primary makeup items I gravitate towards these days.
However, my Mum was and still is, very meticulous about her skincare routine. I’d often spend time lolling on my parents’ bed chatting and watching her put on her creams and potions as she got ready for bed. It got so that when it was my turn to start a skincare routine, I never found it a hassle to apply creams and lotions in the morning and evening. I’d seen my Mum doing it all those years that it was almost as if it was the norm, to me. It instead surprised me that people would find it a bother.
I’d sometimes find her resting on a weekend with a home made mask on her face. There was a spell when we’d both have honey-yogurt masks on my face, dozing on a hot afternoon. She, relaxed; me, worried ants would eat off my face 😛
Before swimming lessons, she’d spend 15 minutes before that slathering me and my sister with sunscreen. Till today, the smell of Coppertone sunscreen brings back memories of swimming lessons on hot afternoons. I should technically have great pigment free skin but youth and that impression of invincibility meant I placed too much faith in sunscreen that did not work as well as they should, and in failing to use it because “Oh, I’m just running out for 10 minutes, its ok”. Sure, if I could turn back time, I’d have some serious words with my younger self about the regular use of sunscreen. But lets not cry over spilt milk and just mop it up 🙂
I’m not surprised therefore that I dabble so much in skincare and try this and that, always having an eye out for something good or better. Like my Mum, my primary interest lies in skincare. Makeup came much much later. Like Mum, I used to only use powder, blush and a touch of lipstick when I started. I’ve graduated since then, but you know what? So has my Mum! These days, when I hand her a new cream or serum or cleanser, she’s as excited about it as I am; and I share makeup with her that I think suits her and it pleases her to no end.
I think that now, as much as my Mum has influenced my beauty routine, I’m also influencing hers. You could say, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree 😀
How has YOUR Mum influenced your beauty routine?
To all Mums, Happy Mother’s Day. You all deserve the day off 🙂
Paris B
Hiya!
My mum sounds pretty much like yours, Paris! She got me started on a skincare routine at 12, and always reminded me of how important it was to care for our skin properly! She isn’t really into makeup, except like your mum, just some powder, blusher, lipstick and eyeliner. Now at 60+ she still has fabulous skin! She knows I love makeup too, but when she sees me buying a little too much, she’ll remind me that it’s wiser to splurge on skincare than on makeup. 🙂
*high 5* Fizz! 😀 Its a pity how little knowledge was available to us back then, and resources, especially when you live in a small town. There’s so much you don’t get exposed to. My mum still doesn’t get makeup LOL The only thing she bugs me for is, you guessed it, blush and lipstick! I’d like to think that if I take after my Mum I’d end up looking younger than my years 😉
My mother never wears makeup and isnt really good example how to take care about skin. The good thing she taught me was not to over-pluck my eyebrows, use heavy creams in winter and to use very often hand cream.
I’m sure your brows, skin and hands thank you for her advice 😀
My mum only use any drug store cleanser and nothing else after that. This had left me clueless and not caring for my skin during my teenage’ years until cystic acne pop up=( . I had more than 10 years of miserable skin but also the main reason that spurred me to learn about skincare since not everyone is blessed with acne- free skin like my mum do. Now, i became more knowledgeable in skincare. I brought her creams and nag her to use them > < . I guess one trait that i got from her is being in the "lazy" department for taking care of skin. Now, i couldn't do that or i will have horrible skin.
I used to have an acne problem too but we were clueless about dermatologists and treatment. On hindsight I could have prevented a lot of unnecessary problems, but on the bright side, I never cared back then so a lot of stress was averted 😀 I think its great that we now care for our mothers as well as, or maybe better than they did our skins. At least we have so many options these days unlike the days of yore! 😀
Mom was the one who introduced me to the world of cleansers, toners and moisturiser…. she even bought me my first facial package…. i remember going with her to the beauty saloon and entertain myself on the next bed while she has her facial while i was still in kindi…. 🙂
Aww your Mom is awesome! 😀 I used to watch my Mom having her facials too and I told myself I’d have that some day when I grew up because it looked like so much fun! 😀
An apt discussion in conjunction with Mother’s Day today 🙂 Other than some pigmentation and sag around the eyes and jaw during the recent years, generally my mother has very good skin. She can make do with drugstore products and swore by Oil of Ulan during my childhood years. Her simple soap or cleanser then splash with water and moisturizer routine followed through many years and never a day she had any breakouts or flaky skin. I have concluded that women born and bred in the 50s are definitely more durable! Make up for her means face powder and lipstick, oh and eyebrow pencil. She is quite particular and into the eyebrow tattoo thingmagic which I don’t subscribe.
So having a simple mummy, she has very very little influence over my beauty routine. Applying toner and then serum followed by slathering moisturizer, slapping a mask or two…the whole process chain baffles me:p My cousins hit puberty and started to paint their faces in multi shades, my mother was concerned because I was disinterested. Oh well. Then I grew up further. One morning after I woke up from an awful break up, I realized that the quickest way to bounce back from the misery would be…to start to look after myself and look good to feel good. We’re all visual creatures anyways, how we look at ourselves included. I now incorporate a disciplined skincare routine which I am happy and following through.
I have learnt to buy some products for my mother now that I can afford it and encouraged her to use the products to prevent pigmentation. Is it expensive, mother will always ask. I said money can be earned…
Happy Mother’s Day to all our wonder mums!
You know what they say – if you want to see how you’d look when you get older, look at your Mom and I think the saying is true! If you ask me now, I have no idea what my Mom used back in the day. We lived in a small town so I suppose she had to use whatever she could find and department store goods definitely appeared much more pricey then than they do now. I remember my grannies slathering on Hazeline Snow and powder. Beauty just never gets old does it? 😀
Its good to know that something positive came out of something negative. No better way to bounce back than to make yourself look “bloody good” 😉 We still don’t get a lot of brands back home so I’m my Mom’s skincare supplier now. I do tease her about how pricey certain items are, when she tells me how good they are, but as you said, money can be earned. Mother’s joy is priceless 😉
My mom never used makeup or cared much about skincare. She had this belief that the more she did for herself, the less she was doing for her family and it has shown on her face quite early. She is also a heavy smoker and sits all day working under the sun on her garden with not a lick of sunscreen on. The strange thing is she was practically dragging me to dermatologists when I started showing some acne and insisted I learn proper skincare. She would “drown” us with sunscreen AND told us to wait the appropriate time before we went swimming and she made sure both her children were grown into anti-smokers.
I guess that she has influenced me greatly, because I religiously take care of my face (and skin in general) and I have quite a large collection of makeup that I always wear. So I guess she influenced me by showing what can happen if I do not take care of myself, as well as put me in the right path to skincare from a young age.
Thank you for sharing your story Marianthi 🙂 I suppose your Mom knew what she had to do to protect your skin even if she wasn’t doing the same for herself. It is very inspiring, in a roundabout way 🙂
My mom was very similar to yours–she never wore much makeup when I was growing up. Her signature, though, was always a bright, pale, blue-based pink lipstick and she was good to go. She has such beautiful skin that she didn’t need much else (aside from filling in her brows. My mother almost has none–she was just born with very minimal brow hair!). She always has loved playing with skincare more. I think that’s where I got my love of skincare. Makeup is always fun for me but skincare is what I’m most interested in and is where I really spend my money!
My mother has never been loyal to any one brand or product really–as long as I can remember, she has flitted back and forth between brands and products. No matter how much she says she likes a cream or serum, I don’t think she has ever repurchased an item right away–she’s always looking for the next thing to try 😛 These days, she just uses whatever I give her and doesn’t bother to buy her own creams or serums anymore 😛 I think I’m a bit more loyal to products than she is but I still LOVE to experiment with other products–I just make sure to keep certain tried-and-true products on hand just in case those experimentations don’t work out 😛
It seems like so many of us have the same Mom LOL! Less into makeup, more into skincare and look at us all – beauty junkies! 😀 I have been trying to think of the skincare my Mom used to use but I can’t recall them now. We lived in a small town and didn’t have access to many brands, even drugstore so I guess her options were quite limited, yet she did well enough. Imagine how much luckier we all are these days! 😀
Hi Paris B! Honestly saying , it is not my mum skincare routine influenced me to start of taking care of my skin in my teen years. My mum started out the skincare routine in her late 30s and when I started to grow up, my mum did complain to me that she was feeling regret as she should start off the skincare routine earlier and this had given me an awareness of the importance of taking care of skin staring from teenage years. I started out around 19 and exploring the skincare products had became one of my interest. Till now I’m still very much aware of my skin. I’m more towards skincare than makeup. But my mum did influence me on lipstick. I used to see her putting on powder, blush and lipstick before going for work. Till now I’m still obsess with lipstick. Haha!
Hi Michelle, Thank you for sharing your story! 😀 It looks like so many of us are more into skincare than we are into makeup. Makeup makes a quick change but we need the skincare for preservation and long term benefits don’t we? Its great to know you’ve been caring for your skin from a young age. Wish I was that diligent when I was at your age! 😀
i am thankful for mom who started me with skincare since i turned 13..even when she did not have a lot of money but she never skimped on my skin care. i swear i could have looked a lot worse now if not for her effort. so to repay her care, i told myself that i’d take care of her skincare for the rest of her life
Wah lucky you! Living in a small town, it wasn’t easy finding good skincare was it? I know exactly how you feel and its great to know that you’re keeping true to your word! 😀
My mum has quite a fuss free skincare routine and i think that rubbed off on me too. I usually limit myself to 2-3 items (e.g. toner, serum, moisturizer) the most now. When i was younger in my early 20s, i used to experiment slathering tons and layers of products. But after some years, i think less is more. And hey, my mum is right after all. Anything more is taking up too much time and attention on this face as much as i love it.
I remembered going out with her to shop for skincare from french brands such as Decleor way back then too. She’s the really thrifty kind but she believes in investing on good products that work and consistent efforts to use the products. Hence, this has become kind of a mantra for me to choose quality and effective products now as well.
Nowadays, she leaves it to me to shop for her skincare. Most of the times, she’s happy with my buys for her.
You know what I find interesting? Many of us started out with our Mom’s showing us the way, and now we are the ones plying our Mom’s with skincare LOL I think its really great and we all have different things we learned from our Moms 😀 I have been cutting back down on my skincare recently but adding on items as and when my skin needs it and it seems to be working well. I used to be quite a lot more dramatic in my layering but less so now. I don’t remember what my Mom used to use but we had limited choices living where we did, but she always managed to make it work. I think that’s testament to her being able to find affordable products that were high quality 🙂
My mom has very simple skincare routine, basically cleanse & moisturise that’s all. However, she has great skin, apart from some pigmentation on her cheeks. Well, I do not take after her good skin, I have serious breakout during puberty time, having blemishes whole face, guess what, It was no concern to me at all and I do not see the importance of taking good care on my skin then. It’s my mom that raised the awareness in me, even with the most simplest step in skincare (cleanse + moisturise with Oil of Ulan), it finally help to get the blemishes diminished. Ok, it’s mom that make me start taking care of my skin, but not adding more and more and more products on my face especially during my 20s…haha. However, in the past few years, I’ve come to realise that ‘less is more’ and ‘hydration is most important’ in my skincare routine, hence keeping the routine ‘downsize’ again.
Thanks to Mom and Happy Mothers’ Day!
and hey, great post Paris!
I’m glad you enjoyed this post, Jesz! I enjoyed reading about all the ways mothers have influenced how we attend to our beauty routines and it would appear many of our mothers have very similar routines. I was in a way, like you. I had bad acne but I never really bothered about it and it was my Mom who tried to help by buying me all sorts of creams and feeding me all sorts of vitamins and supplements 😀 I think one way or another, we have our mothers to thank for where we are now, skin wise 😀
My mum has always been very fuss-free when it comes to her own skincare routine (she washes it with water and sometimes uses a moisturiser), which led to my late discovery of skincare and cosmetics in my early twenties. Nowadays, I’m the one who nags her to apply sunscreen and use the various products I bought.
Wow your Mom is lucky but I think back in the day, it was quite common for women to just wash and go right? Or at most, they’d wash with soap (horrors!) and just apply a quick cream and that’s it 😀 Encouraging her to use sunscreen at a minimum is a good thing to do. Especially with the sun and UV rays these days! That hole in the ozone ain’t closing up!
Mom introduced skin care routine to my sisters and I. She started bringing us along when she’s going for her monthly facial treatment (when she thought we’re old enough for that). She always has good skin. Now she’s in her late 50s and she doesn’t have any visible wrinkles. I remember the brands she was using before were all French. I’m not sure if that’s the reason why all most of my skin care products are French too? *lol*
I do think there was an influence there 🙂 My mom didn’t use too many Japanese brands so that might be why I gravitate towards western skincare brands too. Only experimented with Japanese skincare in my experimental stage but realised they don’t work as well for me as they should. I have a new affinity for French skincare brands. I do think they work very well! 😀
Skincare, most definitely. She started me on moisturiser with the milky yellow lotion (Clinique’s) and Biore facial cleanser. I think it was just the fact that I wanted to follow exactly what she does every evening in front of her dressing table slathering on lots of lotions and potions.
She was also the one who influenced me to use olive green eyeshadow ‘cos that’s about the only eyeshadow she had at that time 😛
I remember asking my Mom why she didn’t use eyeshadow and her reply was that she didn’t know how! LOL So I was the same till I developed a bit of interest. I later found some easy one swipe of colour shadows that she can use and that’s what she uses now. Then again, she did appropriate my Guerlain palette which shows you she has taste LOL! 😀
my mom didn’t really influence me in my makeup or skincare interest, because I never had much chance to see her, she’s always busy at work, much less chances of me seeing her doing her beauty routine.
Her best advice of “you so young, no need sunblock, just absorb the rays la, it’s ok wan” during my younger days is what giving me all these horrendous sun spots and freckles all over my place. Luckily, the Internet and magazines taught me better. Hahaha. It’s only rather recently that she started using sunscreen because she did a laser removal of dark pigmentation around her cheeks. I bet the dermatologist must have told her she has to use one otherwise be prepared for the spot to return. LOL.
Ah but then your Mom probably grew up in the period when people thought the sun was beneficial 🙂 I’ve had people tell me “Oh, morning sun is good. Its the afternoon sun you should be worried about” and I’m like -_-“
Hmm… my mama is also one who emphasized on skin care – what you put on your skin and what sort of food to eat to balance your yin-yang. She’s a Chinese lady, afterall. :p
She used to “scare” me with using foundations like… if you don’t clean it off properly you will have a lot of problems with your skin; if you are used to putting on foundation and if one day you don’t use it you will look sick and people will ask. Oh well… those days foundations were thick. I believe foundations these days have much better formula that actually does the skin some good (such as SPF incorporated into it).
My mama preaches natural beauty and less is more. She only wears lipsticks even if she goes out to dinner party. Over the past decades, she only bought no more than 2 shades of eye shadows… She is brave to wear red lips. Her skin is glowy and smooth. 🙂
So yes, in a lot of ways my mum has influenced me about taking good care of my skin since young. She bought cleanser/moisturiser/night cream for me when I was in my teens. I remember I was using the range specifically targeted for teenagers so with mama taking care of our food consumption (no fried / oily food, only very rarely and frequent herbal soup) and her preaching about looking after the skin, I didn’t have acne problem. Bless her. 🙂
Now I have 2 daughters of my own. My 3 1/2 yr old often imitate me slapping on creams on her face and etc sometimes it’s funny. She really wanna be like her mummy! When the time comes for her to use proper skincare, I will teach her the right way to do it as my mama has taught me. Thai has a saying, if you want to know how a girl you like will turn out, look at her mother. I think this is so true! 😀
You know what they say, Mom knows best! 😀 Your girls are lucky because their Mom will be able to guide them along the maze of skincare out there! My Mom set me on the path but we had to both stumble along it together which isn’t to say it wasn’t fun 😀 I think many of us have our Moms to thank one way or another for our fascination and love for skincare and beauty 😀
And many of our mums here prefer skin care over makeup. Very wise women. 🙂
Perhaps my girls will be able to teach me something in the future when they venture out on their own. 🙂
Oh I’m sure they will. Things will have changed a lot by the time they grow up! 😀