24 Hours in Delhi + Beauty Regimen

My typical day spent in Delhi goes by in a flash – You will either find me updating my instagram, tweeting, replying to emails, meeting potential clients and work associates, doing yoga (I recently managed to pull off my very first headstand by myself too!), editing photographs, drafting blog posts and hopefully catching up with friends and family over lunch or dinner. Somedays it seems like I don’t even have time to breathe and since I don’t really have a conventional 9-5, there isn’t much difference between my weekdays or weekends. Luckily I don’t receive my typical 70 daily emails on my Sundays and happen to love what I do so I don’t mind the blurring lines between my weekdays. After all, I can manage to go and live in Bali for a month so you’ll never find me complaining!

But in the midst of all the crazy workdays, I do tend to neglect my skincare from time to time – there have been days when all I have done is wash my face with body soap(natural though), slather on a sunscreen followed by my foundation and rushed out for a meeting. Yes it gets undoubtedly horrific at times but most of the times I do like to pay attention to my skincare routine especially since I have an acne-troubled skin and it’s not easy to please. I did recently give up dairy – drinking milk, eating paneer (cottage cheese) and cheese directly (I do enjoy my pizza however) and that has seemed to really help in calming down my skin and acne issue overall.

Being summers and living in a polluted cesspool like Delhi, I do give special attention to my skincare routine – those of you who follow me on Snapchat will know how crazy I am about face-masks! Lol! Face-masks are really the best – it doesn’t involve heading to a spa/salon and wasting atleast 2 hours of your time in getting a facial. You get your mini facials with some really effective face masks out there sitting at home. Just slap the stuff on your face and get to work on your laptop. And my current top favorite face mask right now is the Estée Lauder Advanced Night Repair Powerfoil Mask. I’ll come to that in a bit but let’s start with what my typical day in Delhi usually looks like and the beauty regime that I’m currently following since it’s summers and basically crazy dirty air time.

I start my day with a glass of warm water with lemon + honey + ginger bits and 2 collagen supplements with it.
I do a few quick wriggly stretches in bed to wake up my blood circulation and I’m out of bed by around 8-8:30 am.
Since I always go to bed with squeaky clean skin, I don’t really do any heavy duty cleansing in the morning – just a light face-wash or sometimes only water. Over-cleansing is a thing, it over-works your skin and isn’t a good idea.

I slather on a good hydrating cream. The Estée Lauder Revitalising Supreme Light Oil Free Creme is currently my go-to. Oil free so great for my acne prone skin, has a light but divine fragrance, a very creamy luscious texture that helps it spread across the face with great ease and gets absorbed like a mattifying dream. It’s a great choice and I’m loving it even more because it’s anti-aging. Let’s face it, if you’re over 25, it’s in your best interest to start using atleast one anti-aging product – mother nature is not kind to us women. Days when my skin is feeling too dry or stretched out I give it an extra boost with the Estée Lauder Advanced Night Repair Serum but just a little bit. It’s a tiny bottle so I carry it in my bag too.
I ALWAYS follow up with sunscreen.

Breakfast is fruits followed by oats and an egg. If I’m doing more than usual weights I eat 2 eggs.
I mostly keep my makeup as minimal as possible unless I have a shoot etc. On regular days I only apply a foundation (for my acne marks). That’s pretty much it – no mascara, no liner, no kajal, no blush, no bronzer – that stuff is personally very time consuming for me and I’d rather not get involved.

After that I dress up for a shoot if I have any and head out with some extra makeup on.
It’s not easy doing a shoot in the Delhi summers so I try to do mine as early as possible. Sometimes we shoot in the direct sun, sometimes in the shade and sometimes right on the streets where it can get pretty grimy but hey, we do what we gotta do!

This is followed by meetings. I usually club my lunch with meetings – saves time duh! From the dirty air and excessive heat you suddenly get to an air-conditioned restaurant or cafe and that can wreak havoc on your skin.
I keep my lunch crispy and light and sometimes even cold. Having a lunch with heavy spices/fats and ingredients tends to make me want to nap in the afternoons and most of the days I just can’t afford to do that so my best bet for lunch meetings is a huge cold salad to keep me fresh and going for the day. Just like I use super-serums and beauty products for my skin, I like to give my body some super-food fuel too. You have GOT to make healthy choices if you want to look hot at 40.

After my meetings and light lunch I usually spend some time on the phone again – either on calls or social media. I slow down just a bit because after that I usually hit yoga. Changing into good looking workout clothes really motivates me somehow so I always make it a point to carry a change if I’m not going to be doing my yoga at home. I do sweat it out with yoga for about an hour after which I also do some foam-rolling (that’s a new but awesome addition in my routine).
After my workout obviously my makeup is out of place, sweaty and shiny so I have to cleanse my face. I use the Estée Lauder Advanced Night Micro Cleansing Foam to remove all my makeup and re-do if necessary for dinner or drinks with the family or getting together with friends. But my weekdays are mostly uneventful so no going out drinking etc. In-fact I eat my dinner by 8pm (It’s 7 in the winters)

Once I’m ready to hit the bed I do a final rigorous cleansing session. I either use the same foam or even better, the Estée Lauder Advanced Night Micro Cleansing Balm. You can use it sitting in bed. Once I apply the balm on the skin, because of the skin’s heat it turns a bit oily and spreads easily all over the face. The balm is so effective in removing make-up including all eye-make. After massaging it for a bit, I wash it off with water and the skin feels fresh, happy and clean – all in 1 step. I then pat dry my skin and seal it all it with the Estée Lauder Advanced Night Repair Serum. On special days when I feel like my skin deserves some extra tlc, I go for the insanely helpful Estée Lauder Advanced Night Repair Concentrated Recovery Powerfoil Mask.

The Powerfoil Mask is the new super-hero product by Estée Lauder and is the perfect way to pamper your skin with some 5 star loving. The first of it’s kind that I have used – it actually has a metallic foil on it’s outer layer with a cellulose layer underneath it carrying all the ingredients. The foil seals in all the anti-oxidants and encourages maximum absorption. I’m a huge fan of skin hydration and this is one of the few masks I know of that have double the usual dose of Hyaluronic Acid! The mask works wonderfully to feed the skin with the Advanced Night Repair serum and a lot more than that too. It is said to remove all traces of pollution and grime and leave the skin feeling fresh and new. I also love the slight tingly feeling you get while wearing the mask along with looking like the silver surfer. I would ideally use this mask once a week as mentioned on the product but I like to keep my masks for longer durations – 30 to 40 minutes. Yumm! The Powerfoil Mask is currently priced at ₹ 7,200/- so if not weekly, even twice a month would be a great treat.

This is quite a long post and I usually don’t write so much in my posts but I thought I’d share a lot of details with you. If you have any other questions do leave them below in the comments section and I will answer them for you. Hope you enjoyed reading about my beauty regime and days in general 🙂

Estée Lauder can also be found on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram |
Stay connected with me over Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest |

<*client>

Share this...

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Linkedin

Whatsapp