Each brand had its own aisle and for someone used to seeing the shelves at big chain Canadian drugstores, I felt paralyzed by the options. All the expert recommendations were there and more.Robyn Doolittle/The Globe and Mail
Before I left for Paris to cover the Olympic Games, my friends texted me an important farewell message: a shopping list of French skin care products that they wanted me to bring home.
If you know, you know. French pharmacies are legendary.
Walk into almost any dingy corner drugstore in Paris and you’ll find an embarrassment of skin care riches. All your favourite French brands – Avène, La Roche-Posay, Caudalie – but way more options than you’ll find in Canada, and often much cheaper.
So on Sunday, just hours before the start of the closing ceremony, I went off for my final – and perhaps most important – assignment.
Top of my friends’ list was A313, a pharmaceutical-grade vitamin A and retinol cream. This was also the first item dermatologist Renée A. Beach mentioned to me when I called her for advice on what to buy.
“It’s a cult classic,” said Dr. Beach, the founder of DermAtelier on Avenue. “A313 is a cream that has three retinol forms in it. It’s – I don’t know – 10 bucks Canadian. We can’t even get A313 in Canada and you’d be hard-pressed to find a retinoid that’s 10 bucks off the shelf in Canada.”
There are some vendors in the United States that sell A313, but Dr. Beach cautioned that it’s not the same formula. The American version doesn’t have three retinols, it has one.
So why are French pharmacies so much better? For one, Europe has different regulations around the ingredients that can be used. The other thing, Dr. Beach said, is that French brands are constantly innovating and European consumers are reaping those benefits first. For example, a new “hero” ingredient that’s been having a moment recently is niacinamide, she said.
“In Canada, for example, we just got the niacinamide serum. But in France, the same brand has the serum and they have a cleanser and they have a whole line of products available centred around this innovation,” she said.
Dr. Beach had three other recommendations for my list: La Roche-Posay’s new Mela B3 cleanser, “any and all of Vichy deodorants” and Lierac Sébologie for acne.
Next, I called Dr. Julia Carroll, a dermatologist and co-founder of Compass Dermatology. She told me that if I bought one thing, it should be sunscreen.
“When dermatologists go shopping in Paris, it’s often sunscreen that they’re bringing back,” she said.
“They have different filters there than we have here. And filters that are better at protecting from ultraviolet A radiation,” she said. “In Canada, the word SPF only refers to ultraviolet B protection. If you want more complete protection, you look for the word ‘broad-spectrum.’”
Dr. Carroll’s favourite is Avène Very High Protection sunscreen, which she notes has good, high-protection UV filters and a formula that doesn’t run, so it won’t sting the eyes. She also advised me to pick up some Dermophil Indien Solar Lip Balm SPF50.
Another favourite on her list is Biafine, which is technically a burn recovery cream, but it works well on the everyday “scrapes and boo boos of life for the whole family.”
Her final must-have for my shopping list was Embryolisse Concentrated Lait Cream, a multi-purpose product that can be used as a makeup remover, day cream, primer and even a body cream. She advised that a little goes a long way.
With my list complete, I headed out from my hotel Sunday afternoon armed with a large tote bag and a credit card.
Very quickly, I learned a vital lesson: do not leave your big pharmacy shop for a Sunday. Almost everything is closed. My entire time in Paris I’d been popping into little hole-in-the-wall drug stores and eyeing goods – including rows of A313 stacked behind the counter – but now all the ones near me were shuttered.
Undeterred, I turned to the Google machine and found some options downtown. I hopped on the metro for the Saint-Germain-des-Prés district and after a short walk found an open pharmacy with a flashing green cross outside.
I was unprepared for the mob.
The store was smaller than your typical small-town Tim Hortons, but I bet there were more than 50 people inside – mostly tourists – stuffing bags full of products. Each brand had its own aisle and for someone used to seeing the shelves at big chain Canadian drugstores, I felt paralyzed by the options. All the expert recommendations were there and more. Did I need a new B5 serum? Some Vitamin C? An eye cream? An exfoliant?
I stuck to sunscreen, Biafine and A313, which was kept behind the counter.
I asked for eight. She would only give me five. They were €7.69. (At some smaller pharmacies, I saw A313 going for between €16 and €18.)
I’ll pop back tomorrow for the rest.