For a French girl, I’m remark­ably low-maintenance. Like I explained before, some women claim their hus­band wouldn’t rec­og­nize them with­out make-up — mine won’t rec­og­nize me if I put make-up on.

I do have a fond­ness for cream though. I prob­a­bly got it from my mother who insa­tiably test and col­lect var­i­ous creams, com­ment­ing on their tex­tures and their effi­ciency. Putting cream on is com­fort­ing and their smell often remind me of places I’ve been too: for instance, I used the Olive Body But­ter from Body Shop in Aus­tralia 7 years ago and to this day, it still makes me think of Syd­ney, Ade­laide and Melbourne.

I don’t buy creams often but I’m always on the look for a great face cream which will pro­tect me from our harsh Cana­dian win­ters. Last year, after com­plet­ing an early morn­ing exam at uni­ver­sity, I walked through The Bay and sam­pled a few creams at the beauty counter — that’s how I relax. Pathetic, I know. One of the sales­girls must have sensed I was in the mood to spend money and she pre­sented me with a few sam­ples. I must have looked inter­ested: she gave me a small white beauty case with two sam­ples inside. “You will see”, she claimed. “You will come back to buy the cream in less than a cou­ple of weeks”.

The cream she gave me smelled great. It felt great — the tex­ture was soft and rich, yet it didn’t leave any oily film. My skin was glow­ing and it wasn’t so dry after a cou­ple of days, which was no small mir­a­cle con­sid­er­ing we were in Feb­ru­ary. One night, I looked that mir­a­cle cream up on the web, deter­mined to go back to The Bay to buy it. I was ready to dig deep in my pocket. I wanted it badly.

I gasped when I saw how much it was. And that was the online price, in US$. Let just say I could have bought a very nice Ipod for the price of the small jar, and another zoom lens for my cam­era for the price of the not-so-small jar. Bah.

I felt like one of those peo­ple who are offered drugs at a party, got hooked and ended up sell­ing their car for a few grams of crack or what­ever is trendy these days. The girl at the counter had me hooked on the best cream ever by giv­ing me a free sam­ple. I decided to do the sen­si­ble thing: I just said no. I’m not spend­ing that much on a cream, this is ridicu­lous, no mat­ter how good it is.

Dur­ing this trip to France, I went back to basics and shopped for creams and beauty prod­ucts that are a great value and yet don’t break my bank account.

I bought:

• Les Gouttes Bleues (Innoxa, €4.50) : really cool eye drops that relax tired eyes and make the sclera looks very white.
• Argan Oil Cream and Oil (around €15 each): this nutri­tive oil is great to repair dry skin. The cream is mois­tur­iz­ing yet not oily.
• L’Occitane soaps (€9 for three soaps): for the longest time, I used liq­uid soap before I even­tu­ally real­ized it was expen­sive and I switched back to bar soap. L’Occitane, a com­pany based in South­ern France, has great prod­ucts inspired from Mediter­ranean beauty rit­u­als. These soaps smell good, are mois­tur­iz­ing and last me for quite a while.
• Pierre d’Alun (€7): Alun is a chem­i­cal com­pound that can be used for a vari­ety of thing, includ­ing as a deo. I’m not a huge fan of North Amer­ica deos, I find the smell strong and they tend to stain clothes. Funny thing, I heard a lot of Amer­i­cans com­plain about French deo… I guess our bod­ies are just dif­fer­ent! The Pierre d’Alun, a deodor­ant stone, is sup­posed to last for ages, just wet it a bit and rub on the skin as you would do with other deos. It works very well and has no smell.
• Nuxe Crème Fraîche (Nuxe, €22): this is one of the best face cream I know. I love Nuxe prod­ucts in gen­eral, they are not too expen­sive and the qual­ity is great. This cream smells good, mois­tur­izes the skin yet doesn’t leave an oily film. Plus, it’s about €150 cheaper than the famous French cream men­tioned above…
• Nuxe Honey Lip Balm (Nuxe, €8): I had to buy this one, the box stated it was the tests were con­ducted in con­di­tions of extreme Cana­dian cold! It smells of honey and makes the lips super smooth.
• Nuxe Huile Prodigieuse (Nuxe, €10): this shim­mery oil is truly mul­ti­pur­pose and can be used on the face, body and hair. It repairs dry patches and makes the skin glow.

Gouttes Bleues from Innoxa

Huile d’Argan Cream and Body Oil

L’Occitance Soaps

Pierre D’Alun (Nat­ural Deo)

Nuxe Prod­ucts: Shim­mery Body Oil, Face Cream and Honey Lip Balm

Tests Con­ducted in Con­di­tions of Extreme Cana­dian Cold!

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