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

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.)

Glytone Rejuvenate Facial Cream

So, skin woes. Mine is combination - tends to shine, but with occasional dryness. And I guess it's a bit sensitive...but then most skin is sensitive when you're irritating the hell out of it.

Until recently, I felt like my skin was a nightmare that would never end. The dry patches were really getting me down, because despite the fact that no one else (said they) could tell they were there, I knew. And sometimes they'd be itchy, which drove me crazy, because I couldn't do anything about it unless I wanted red raw dry patches.

But a month or so ago, I started getting some treatments for certain problems at a skin clinic. I described my skin nightmare to the nurse, and she could see for herself what was going down, and she told me in no uncertain terms to ditch my Eve Lom cleanser and steer well clear of any granular scrubs. Instead, she advised me to use a glycolic acid cream every night (easing into it with twice a week usage to start), which would exfoliate away the dry skin without irritating the rest of it. For daytime, she insisted I use a 30+ SPF sunblock, which functions as my moisturiser.

I bought from the clinic a pot of Glytone Rejuvenate Facial Cream, and have been using it faithfully ever since. I don't know whether the improvement my skin has seen is due to that or the Avene Gentle Cleanser (which the same nurse recommended and sold to me), but the difference is dramatic. The itching is gone, as are the dry patches, and I've not had any sort of breakouts or other annoying/gross skin issues.

...Until, that is, I tested a toner for the purposes of this blog. It may just be a coincidence, but the morning after using the toner, I woke up with a blemish. Toner ditched, everything's back to normal.

I'm quite pleased with the Glytone cream - it's not cheap, but after using it for a month, I've barely skimmed the top layer. At this rate, it will need to be thrown away for freshness reasons before I've actually managed to use it all. And it doesn't irritate my skin, despite the alpha-hydroxy acid content.

Now that I've got a skin routine that seems to be working for me, I'm now faced with a whole new set of circumstances: I may just have no real reason ever to try or buy any new skincare products. The prospect of that fills me with horror, boring as it would be, but it would also be a nice problem to have.

Avene Extremely Gentle Cleanser

Yeah, I kinda left you hanging there. So: Avene Extremely Gentle Cleanser is, as I said, my new favourite. It is what it says on the label - non-irritating and creamy without leaving a film on one's skin (as something like, say, E45 Wash - which I was using prior to the Avene - does). According to the label, you don't even need to rinse it off; you can just use a cotton pad to apply and a tissue to remove. Because I'm contrary - not to mention afraid of the tiny spots one can get from failure to rinse thoroughly - I apply it with my fingers, wipe it off with a cotton pad, and rinse with lukewarm water at least ten times. It's good and also relatively inexpensive - I got mine from my (paid) friends at the Skin Knowledge Network for £7, 50 pence off the suggested retail price.

My skin looks fine (or so everyone goes to pains to tell me), but in truth it's something of a nightmare: it tends to dry patches, while also being shiny as hell, and can be awfully sensitive when it wants to be. Unfortunately, I can't find Cetaphil here, and thinking about it, I wouldn't be surprised if the Avene Extremely Gentle Cleanser was comprised of the same exact ingredients.