Welcome to My Morning Routine, where natural beauty Cate Blanchett and other good-life gurus share their personal (frequently surprising, often healthy) morning rituals—to help make your a.m.’s more awesome.

Cate BlanchettAustralian, Oscar-winning actress of the silver screen and stage, director, mother of four, SK-II global brand ambassador

I tend to go to bed quite late. I really like that moment when everyone is in bed and it’s silent and I can potter. I tend to have put everything out, done all the lunches and everything the night before. It makes it less stressful in the morning because waking up and yelling at your kids to get in the car is not a particularly nice way to start the day.

I don’t have a lot of time in the morning. I mean, who does? I drink hot water and lemon, which is really virtuous, and then I have a coffee. That’s it—I cleanse and then I tox.

If I’ve had a particularly late night and gone to bed with my makeup on, I wash my face in the morning, but otherwise I just tend to cleanse it at night. When I’m on stage or on a film set, I’ll use the oil-based cleanser [by SK-II], which is really like an eye makeup remover as well—it’s a lazy girl’s cleanser.

I don’t tend to wear makeup in the morning, mostly because I’m lazy and time-poor. I put the essence on, the serum, and the moisturizer, and then if I’m in Australia I put on the UV protect essence. I was out for 15 minutes yesterday in the sun and it’s just so intense. You really do have to put on 50 SPF and you have to walk in the shade.

When I was in high school…I tried [to tan], and covered myself in baby oil and went on our tin roof. My mother one day climbed up the ladder and said, “Just please get down.” And she gave me a big lecture on the fact that my pale skin was actually really beautiful. That was really great because I went, “Okay, I’m not going to do that.”

[Mine is] a pretty straightforward [beauty] regimen. It’s a bit like when you drive home and you can’t remember how you got there. My skin care is like that.

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