With two small children to get dressed, fed and out of the house, I have ten minutes tops to get my glam on. 

What is a beauty addict to do? Developing a quick and dirty routine with multi tasking products is the only way to go. This is something I've been working on since having my son five years ago, and I like to think I've got it down to a bit of an art now. 

So in celebration of all the time-poor working mums out there who still want to rock the war paint, I'm starting a series of posts dedicated to quick and easy looks, starting with this take on 'soft glam'. 

Soft glam is a very Instagram thing. It's all about trying to get that hyper-real gently, filtered look in real life. 

Glowing skin, glossy lips, warm eyes and fluffy brows and lashes are the goal. There should be no hard edges here - everything needs to look hazy and diffused. 

So what are the steps to getting there and how do you do it in ten minutes? 

From supply shortages of key products to sacking off make-up without a daily commute or an office to go to, through to making more time for skin care or learning what eye makeup compliments a face mask - there’s no doubt that Covid-19 has had an impact on our glam. 

For me, beauty has provided a little bit of escapism in a stressful world. I did go through a phase in the first lockdown where I couldn’t be bothered to make any effort at all, but I soon realised that make-up is a part of who I am. I see the act of putting it on in the morning as a tiny, ten minute sliver of ‘me time’ in a day full of work and childcare. 

If I look better, I feel better, so I soon worked out that even if I wasn’t leaving the house, it was better for me if I carried on with as much normality as possible. I’ve always said the real me wears eyeliner! 

And discovering new products still continues to be a source of pleasure in a time when most of ours have been cancelled. I’ve discovered some game changing beauty products lately, and I hope that sharing them might lift your spirits a little as well as mine.

I’m not quite sure how it slipped - only that things have been a little manic around here for a while. I still think this mystery selection of items that ships from the US is one of the best and most exciting subscriptions I’ve tried. 

The products are all full-size, usually fairly high-end, a great mix of beauty, fashion and lifestyle items and frequently American brands I haven’t come across before. 

Although I wasn’t instantly smitten with my first ever FabFitFun box, it’s actually become one of the items I’m most excited about receiving. 

If you’re bored of the usual suspects with beauty sub boxes, I would say it's well worth a try. So what came for ‘fall’ or as we say here in the UK, autumn?

And when my husband and I headed out for tapas at Escabeche the other night, we could almost kid ourselves that we were back in our pre-pandemic lives for a few hours. 

The restaurant is a place that we’ve enjoyed dinner with friends many times in the past. There were delicious Catalan flatbreads, the signature Baresca meatballs, spicy patatas bravas and of course, the sinful-but-delicious churros to finish, with the usual lovely atmosphere and friendly service we’ve always loved there. 

To top if off, it was one of those evenings where the air felt balmy and rich, so we could almost kid ourselves we were on holiday, which is one thing we have seriously missed this year. 

So of course, an outfit post had to be done!