French Skincare, Part One

Can you go to Paris and not talk about your skin?

I have, over the years, fielded a lot of questions about my skin and skincare routine. And while I do have suggestions, which I will get to, my general belief is it matters less what you use than that you use it regularly. The only musts I subscribe to when it comes to skin are: Always wash your face before you go to bed. Always moisturize. ALWAYS use sunblock. Always. 24/7/365. That’s it.

This is maybe not be the most impactful advice if you only discover skincare at the age of 40. Which may no longer be a possibility thanks to social media, but was a fairly common occurrence in people my age (which, I’m here to tell you, is solidly 50). I don’t know how much you can “fix” your skin after years of absent care. But also, better late than never? But also, does it matter?

I was on the skincare routine early solely due to the fact I was a pretty serious competitive swimmer from the age of 10 and the near lethal amounts of chlorine they put in the pool dried out my face to the point of pain (it also turned all our hair a weird coppery shade of blonde/green). I’d get out of swim practice (sometimes twice daily), wash my face with the ladies room hand soap and then slather all over it whatever moisturizer was handy. Likely my mother’s Jergen’s hand cream or the like. Rinse repeat (literally) until the age of 23 when I moved to New York.

I can’t ever find the reference for this, but I distinctly remember Chloe Sevigny giving an interview in an indie mag in the late nineties where she said her skin secret was Cetaphil. I’m one hundred percent certain that this is when we all started using it. At the same time my Swiss roommate (we shared a tiny one bedroom on the LES for $350/month each…I got the mattress on the floor, she got the futon couch) had a small container of Kiehl’s face moisturizer that I used one day when mine had run out. LIGHTNING BOLT moment. The difference was extraordinary.

Did you know Colette, “famous writer,” once had a beauty shop in Paris?! I write a little about it in the book. The original French skin care influencer!

In those days Kiehl’s was a standalone, independently owned, shop on 3rd Ave and 13th St. It was breathtakingly expensive to me. But they gave out enormous free samples — what we would consider travel size now. So I would save up for the bottle of the face moisturizer and then get three samples of something else. And this would last me six months.

This, plus Aveda’s liquid exfoliant, was my daily skincare routine from ages 23 to 40. (I still use the Aveda from time to time, though they’ve downsized the bottle…maddening.)

Shortly after I turned 40 I started coming to Paris regularly and shortly after that I ventured into Citypharma, the legendary pharmacy in the 6th where prices are supposedly lower (things are rarely on sale in France) and the selection is vast.

If you follow Charlotte Palermino on instagram, or you pay attention to sunscreen conversations, you know that America is literally decades behind when it comes to sun protection. If you can only buy one thing in France, buy the sunscreen. Because I’m Canadian this is not news to me. Canadian sunblock is similarly advanced and I’ve been getting mine there for maybe 20 years (Ombrelle). My mother was strict about sunblock from the time I was little so I’m also not new to using sunscreen daily (see above re 24/7/365).

Which is all to say, when I went into Citypharma that first day I was not looking for sunblock. I wanted something for my eyes, which, out of the blue seemed to be in need of attention. They looked droopy to me. I don’t believe eye droop is gsolvable outside of surgery and my droop was probably less the result of age than weight I put on when my mother was dying, but neither of these things stopped me from looking!

Around this time the skin care conversation began to take off. New products began to flood the market and internet lists. And whether it was this or that my skin was starting to change, the result was I had begun to get skin curious.

The best part of Citypharma, for me, is that it is full of attendants in white coats who wander the aisles to help you. These days I hunt the attendants down the minute I walk in, but it admittedly took some girding on my part to ask for advice on that initial visit, and not just because my French is abysmal. I had spent two decades eschewing skin care tips because mine worked so well. How could a person get to forty and not have an established routine! I sometimes wondered. But! Kiehl’s, by then part of the L’Oreal Group with increasingly measly samples, had started changing all its formulas (again, maddening) or worse, discontinuing them all together (I still miss you Panthenol Protein and think of you often Lavender Foaming-Relaxing Bath…the greatest bubble bath ever made). Plus, I had recently been given a Japanese cleansing face oil as a host gift and liked it; I wanted to know if perhaps there was more out there.

Dear reader, there was. '

This newsletter is already too long, so I’m going to tell you about the rest next week. During which time I may figure out how to make affiliate links, though I think this is doubtful. Also, I don’t believe in buying French skincare on the Internet. I also want to talk a bit about what it means to get “work” done on your face. Like, if I’m not getting Botox but I’m still spending hundreds of dollars on moisturizer and serums can that really be defined as “no work.” Does it even matter? Is taking care of your skin a noble endeavor? Won’t someone stand for the wrinkles?

Until next week. Remember to wash your face. Moisturize. Use sunblock and drink water. Rinse repeat.