French pharmacies can be magical places, full of fabled beauty items Lisa Eldridge & co. always talk about. Or they can be totally overwhelming and crowded. The place where your significant other is complaining about your time-consuming beauty-buying habits while you’re standing in the aisle unable to decide what you want to buy (the last scenario may or may not have been a personal experience). So, here’re five products for your shopping list and a little sneak peak into the best of the best of French pharmacy products.
French Pharmacy Favourites: Skincare
Bioderma Hydrabio Brume
Everybody loves a good face mist, right? And never mind La Roche-Posey’s or Avene’s or Evian’s face mists – Hydrabio Brume Soothing Refreshing Water is a category in itself. While other face mists do nothing but cool your face on a hot day, this soothes angry, red skin. It has some great skincare ingredients and can double as a toner as well: Zinc sulphate (anti-imflammatory) and rhamnose (anti-aging). To get an occlusive effect (otherwise just spraying a facial mist at your face – no matter how nice the ingredients – will dry out your skin) try it under a moisturizer and see how hydrated your skin is!
Bioderma Sensibio/Crealine Tolerance Plus
Yup, another Bioderma product, and one that you can buy sight unseen. Really. Forget Embryolisse moisturizer, THIS is an awesome moisturizer for sensitive skin. It has an impressively short ingredients list, and there’s virtually nothing in their that does anything apart from, well, moisturizing your skin. This is not anti-aging, brightening, oil-controlling, impurities fighting. This is an extremely gentle moisturizer that I like to use when my skin is angry at me for whatever reasons. I’m a firm believer in not throwing more stuff at it when it’s aggravated, but rather pare it down to the absolute basics and let it calm down (works rather well in other areas in life as well). (Oh yeah, about the name – it’s called Crealine in France and Sensibio in other European countries, as far as I know.)
French Pharmacy Favourites: Body Products
Caudalie Jambes Divines
Do you hate that self-tanner smell as much as me? Caudalie to the rescue! This ‘Tinted Body Lotion’ gives you tanned legs without any orange undertone, and smells heavenly (think floral, woody and warm). Moisturizing ingredients and also some shimmer make your skin look super-smooth. Caudalie says it doesn’t transfer, but I’d give it some drying time until you don your white shorts. That is also the reason that I’d be hesitant to use it all over and then wear a light-coloured dress. In theory, you should be fine, but just call me Ms. Theglassishalfempty. You don’t have to be afraid when you’re caught in the rain – you’ll not be left with brown water droplets running down your legs. It washes off, yes, but you’ve to rub with a washcloth to really get it off. One piece of advice, though: Use a tanning mitt when applying. It just makes things easier. Also, don’t use it when it’s very hot and you’ll be sweaty – I just mention ‘streaky’. ‘kay?
Nuxe – Huile Prodigieuse
This dry oil can be used on your body, face and hair and smells like sun-drenched jasmine. If that’s not your thing, beware, because the smell will linger all day. You don’t need any additional perfume when you’re wearing this dry oil somewhere on your body. I personally wouldn’t want to use it on my face, because there’s a lot of perfume in it (potentially harmful). Dry oil means that the oil is supposed to sink in quickly, leaving a matte, silky finish. A few natural plant oils can do that, but most dry oils manage to do it with the help of cyclomethicone, a silicone, that’ll also help to lock moisture into your skin. Nuxe doesn’t do that, though, and relies mostly on the natural properties of macadamia, hazelnut, almond and olive oil. What I like to do is to use the Huile Prodigieuse after a shower on slightly damp skin. This way, it locks in even more moisture, and sinks in quickly. It’s in a spray bottle (not the mini version I’m showing here, though!) that can get a little slippery. It’s an indulgence – nothing says spa more than being covered in awesome smelling oil!
French Pharmacy Favourites: Hair
Phyto – Phytovolume Actif Spray Intense Volume
I’ve masses of very fine hair that has a mind of its own, I’m sure. It also does this annoying thing when it’s totally flat on the top of my head and starts curling towards the lengths. Not a good look. The Phyto Spray (it’s leave-in, thankfully) gives my roots lots of volume, even with my mediocre skills with a hairdryer and does its job better than anything else from the drugstore. Beware, though – its smell is veeeeery herbal and quite strong (but doesn’t linger in your hair). There’s also alcohol as the first ingredient in the inci list, so I wouldn’t use this every day for fear it would dry out my hair. But once in a while, I don’t care. It also does give me awesome second-day hair and doesn’t leave my hair limp after just a few hours.
What are your favourites? I’ve so many others I could think of!
1 Comment