I've posted a lot of travel posts these past few weeks and today I thought I'd show you what I bought while we were away. I did a bit of supermarket shopping as well as duty-free shopping and I did quite some damage in Sephora. Today's post will be about the supermarket/drugstore shopping and a future post will contain all my Sephora and duty-free goodies.
So I called this blog post "drugstore buys", but actually everything was bought from a variety of places. I bought the Bioderma at a pharmacy, the L'Oreal at duty-free in Frankfurt, the face masks at H&M, and the rest at an Italian supermarket. I haven't tried these products yet (with the exception of one) so feel free to tell me which products you'd like to see a review of!
Bioderma Sensibio H20 Micellar Water
I haven't used Bioderma in years, not because I don't like it (I do), but because it's quite expensive. Garnier's micellar water is much, much cheaper and is, in my opinion, just as good. But when I saw this special banded pack and calculated how much it is in Rands, I knew that it was a good deal. In South Africa we only get the 250 ml bottles (I did see a 500 ml bottle in Dischem the other day, but I could swear we didn't have this previously) and they cost roughly R200-220 depending on where you purchase them. These bottles, however, are 500 ml and work out to roughly R420. Which means that you pay R105 per 250 ml.
L'Oreal Fine Flowers Cleansing Cream
I bought this at the duty-free in Frankfurt and I was very intrigued when I saw it. It's not a balm, it's not an oil, but it's a cream almost like an aqueous cream. It's said to melt makeup and nourish and beautify the skin. It contains rose and jasmine and is suitable for dry and sensitive skin. Now I don't have dry skin and my skin isn't really sensitive, but I was really intrigued by this product and there didn't seem to be another variant for oily combination skin. It smells nice and florally (rose and jasmine) but it's not an overpowering scent. I've actually used this once and I find that it works nicely: it doesn't sting my eyes, nor does it leave my skin dry, tight, or itchy. The instructions say to apply it to your skin, massage it in, and remove it with cotton rounds. I don't like the sound of that so I removed mine with a warm face cloth. It's very gentle and after one use I'm ready to try it again.
H&M Face Masks
I went to a big H&M in Rome to go buy shoes (I had walked mine through) and I saw the big makeup section. I was completely overwhelmed with all the choices and I was ready to just leave everything when I saw that they do face masks. There are a lot of options but I settled on three: pomegranate and mango, dead sea mud, and coconut water. The pomegranate and mango is a pore-cleansing mask with raspberry and Vitamin E for tired skin, the dead sea mud is a balancing face mask with kombu and fucus seaweed (no idea) for combination skin, and the coconut water is a moisturising face mask with shea butter and cocoa butter for dry skin. I've never seen face masks packaged like this and I'm very excited to try them out.
Garnier Products for Face, Body, and Hair
I had to use Google translate to translate the label on this one, but it didn't work so well (apparently "bagnodoccia" translates to "bathrobe"...). Image searches also didn't work (maybe it's a very new product), but I know for a fact that this is a shower gel. It contains argan oil and camellia, and is suitable for both adults and children. It smells delicious and isn't a thick consistency.
I haven't seen this shampoo on our side of the world (until I saw it in a pamphlet last week, ha!) and strangely enough I couldn't find a matching conditioner. It's for "delicate hair" and contains rice cream and oat milk, both of which are very soothing and gentle. It smells delicious and not at all like a bowl of rice!
When I saw this bottle I immediately knew what it was without translating any of it: the latest Garnier micellar water variant. We already have three: the pink , the green, and the yellow. And now there's the green that is for combination and sensitive skin. It is said to remove makeup as well as purify and mattify the skin.
That is it for my drugstore, pharmacy, supermarket haul! Since these are all drugstore brands (with the exception of H&M) I am positive that we will also get these products in SA sometime soon. Let me know which products you would like to see a review of.
Until next time!
Hildegarde
xoxo