Jack & Hill: A Beauty Blog - make-up, cosmetics, perfume, and the substance of style

The eyes have it

  New glasses 
  Originally uploaded by dynamist.

And by 'it' I mean trouble.

These are the new glasses I ordered yesterday. They're Guess, and the very first pair (out of two) that I tried on. You'd think that someone as obsessive as I am about what I put on my face would have put more research and trial into this process, but I'm not a patient girl.

Anyway, I will mostly be wearing my contact lenses, as I have for the last six years or so. But I will have to wear them less often, and am on a strict regime of eye washes and drops, because I seem to have messed up my peepers in various ways. One of the ways has been using products with oils or glycerines around my eyes.

Now, I hate the feel of oily eye makeup removers and things like that, so I have always avoided them. But what I didn't realise is that while seemingly oil-less products like Bioderma Sébium H2O may not sting my eyes, the glycerines they contain do harm the eyes. (I had to read the label to even tell it contained such glycerines, since it appears to be just a very good, mild toning water.)

So now I have to do a torturous eye wash every night before bed, for 30+ seconds on each eye, to flush out the crap that's got onto and around my eyeballs. I also have to use drops throughout the day, and strictly limit my contact lens wearing - absolutely no more than eight hours per day (max, preferably half that) and only six days per week. At least I can still wear them, but I'm pretty unhappy that I've damaged my eyes without even realising it. We only get one pair, you know.

(Big props to my new optician, Dylan Desai at Boots Opticians in Hammersmith. If you're looking for a trustworthy optician who will actually take the time to explain things to you and who cares about your eyes, go to Dylan.)

Bioderma Sébium H2O

I may have mentioned this, but it's really unbearably hot in Paris right now. Very few places have air conditioning, and hotels are not among them. So we have spent lots of time in relatively cool (never freezing, which is what I would love) department stores, taken lots of cold showers, and I have even resorted to laying a wet towel on my legs to help me get to sleep.

The worst part of the heat, for me, is not the heat itself. No, the worst part is the sweating. I'm not talking the 'dewy' look; I'm talking beads, and plenty of them. Inescapable, unattractive sweating.

Which also makes me worry about whether or not I'm going to break out from the overactivity of my sebaceous glands. So I grabbed a bottle of this from the pharmacy nearest my hotel (there are two more within 200 yards, of course).

I chose this because I could translate the label. I keep using it because it is truly mild, so much so that I can use it to remove my eye makeup without irritation, and non-drying. (My skin might tend towards shininess, but it also easily develops dry patches.) It's very refreshing to swipe this across my face at the end of the day, even though - with the remnants of Metro dust and city filth left on the cotton pad - it's also slightly scary.

Not sure if you can get this in the US or the UK, so I'm stocking up now. (Well, not now - after another cold shower.)