The five-minute evening face

It used to take me twenty minutes. There were seven steps, several of which required specific waiting times between them, and the routine was so structured that I could not have done it spontaneously — it required a quiet stretch of bathroom time and a small amount of mental energy to remember the order. I would skip it on busy evenings. I would resent it on tired ones.

Now it takes five minutes. Three products. One pair of hands. I look forward to it.

The five minutes

Minute one: warm muslin cloth on the face, ten seconds, then a cleansing balm worked in slowly for thirty seconds, then the warm cloth used to wipe everything away. The face is clean.

Minute two: three or four drops of facial oil between the palms, warmed briefly, then pressed into the skin of the face and neck. Not rubbed. Pressed. The hands stay against the face for five or six seconds at each placement.

Minute three: the small gua sha sequence — eight slow passes per side, working the jaw and the cheekbone, finishing with the lymphatic drain down the side of the neck. Slower than you would think.

Minute four: a pea-sized amount of night cream, warmed between the fingertips, applied in small upward strokes from the chin to the temples. Then a small additional amount under the eyes, patted with the ring finger.

Minute five: hands rest against the face for thirty seconds. Eyes closed. Breath long. Then water on the hands, light off, bed.

Why this works better than the long version

Because I do it. The long version was an aspiration. The short version is a practice. Five minutes is short enough that even on a tired evening it does not feel like an imposition. The face, given five minutes most nights, does better than it did on twenty minutes some nights.

There is also a quality of the five-minute version that the longer one lacked. The simplicity means I can pay attention. The twenty-minute version had become a small bureaucracy — a sequence of products applied in order with the mind half-elsewhere. The five-minute version has only three things in it, and there is room, in the five minutes, to actually be present with the face I am taking care of.

On the pleasure of looking forward to a small thing

I look forward, now, to the five minutes. The way you look forward to the first sip of tea in the morning or the moment you sit down in the reading chair at the end of the day. The face routine, by becoming smaller and simpler, has become a small evening ritual that the rest of the day points toward. It is one of the few things I would protect against being shortened further. Five minutes is the right amount. Less would not be enough. More would not be sustainable. Five minutes is the practice.