Holiday Makeup Takes Women How Long?!

With the holidays swiftly approaching, there are parties to attend, festivities in which to partake, and, apparently, endless hours spent preparing for these gatherings. A recent article from the Daily Mail asserts that women spend more than five hours getting ready for holiday parties.

These outrageous numbers come from a survey conducted by BlanX, a company that sells whitening toothpaste. The survey itself was nowhere to be found, but apparently British women ages 18-45 were asked about how their beauty routines change for the holidays. Supposedly, beauty takes longer around Christmas time, and the average holiday party preparation breaks down as follows:

BODY: Takes 60 minutes for exfoliation, full leg shave, hair conditioning and face pack

SKIN: Half an hour to blend and apply foundation or BB cream

LIPS: Four minutes to perfectly apply lipstick

EYES: An hour for mascara, eyeliner and smoky eyeshadow

NAILS: 42 mins to touch up tips

OUTFIT: 60 minutes to choose clothes, jewellery and shoes

TANNING: Half an hour to an entire evening for a camera-ready golden glow

For all you non-math majors following along, the above only takes four hours and 46 minutes, but add the purported seven minutes it takes to brush and floss teeth (increased from three minutes during the rest of the year) and 45 minutes women spend on their hair (upped from the usual 20 minutes), the whole routines add ups to five hours and 38 minutes. Of course, these numbers are absolutely ridiculous. If these numbers were real, and you had a 6:30 p.m. holiday party at gram’s house, you would have to start getting ready before 1 o’clock. And that’s not even accounting for travel time.

The Daily Mail claims that women are taking extravagant amounts of time to get ready because they are very concerned about how they will look in photos and on social media. After all, what do women have to do with their time besides making themselves pretty for pictures?

So for those of you who don’t have holiday parties to attend this weekend, and find yourselves with an extra five hours and 38 minutes on your hands, here are some other things that you can do with that time:

• Take the SATs, and then worry about your performance for two more hours
• Fly from New York to Los Angeles
• Swim from Alcatraz to San Francisco five times
• Watch the first two Lord of the Rings movies
• Prepare, cook, and eat a whole turkey
• Walk a half marathon

Just a thought.

Images: bnenin/Fotolia; Giphy