spent two weeks in france and came home with half a pharmacy and skin that finally made sense

okay so this trip genuinley changed how i think about skincare and i need to talk about it.

went to paris for two weeks for work, skin had a bit of a meltdown in the first few days from travel stress and the change in water, went into a pharmacie looking desperate and had the most useful skincare conversation of my life with a french pharmacist who spent about fifteen minutes just asking questions and listening before recommending anything.

she looked at what i was using, asked about my skin concerns, and then calmly explained that i was using too many products with too many active ingredients for skin that was clearly already sensitised, she said french pharmacy philosophy is about efficacy and simplicity not complexity.

she recommended three things, la roche posay toleriane hydrating gentle cleanser, avene cicalfate+ restorative protective cream for the next two weeks while my skin recovered, and avene mineral spf 50 every morning, she said come back in two weeks if u want to add anything else.

i did not go back be i didnt need to, skin was the calmest it had been in years after two weeks of just those three products, the flakiness went away, the tightness went away, the weird sensitivity that had been building up for months just settled.

came home with six of each product and have been using them for four months, skin has been consistently calm and stable in a way it wasnt with my previous much more complicated routine.

french pharmacy skincare is genuinley not overhyped, the philosophy of quality simple effective products just works.

what french pharmacy products have genuinley changed ur routine?