Bienvenue Mai!

This post is more of a public service announcement than it is a Parisian experience. It just happened to happen while I’m in Paris.

I may jump around a bit, to give some back story.

Je passe le magasin Sephora deux fois par jour et parfois plus. One day, feeling playful, I bought myself an eyeshadow palette with lots of pretty colors like rose gold, browns, and neutrals. Nothing too dramatic.

I’ve been using face creams and products that I brought with me from the U.S. having received a nice sample pack of 10 products. The samples are now empty after 3 months, so I opened a new regular sized jar of the eye cream, and used it, per usual. It stung a bit, but I didn’t think anything of it because the stinging didn’t last, and I only use it before bed.

When I was in my 20’s, it was suddenly the rage to try mascaras in different colors. I went for the violet. Well, the next day, my eyes were pure red. They didn’t hurt a bit, but wow, I sure looked like I was in pain. I never went for those violet colors near my eyes again, and in fact, I don’t usually wear eye shadow. I also don’t wear foundation since my skin can be sensitive. My mother worked for Dior years ago, and there’s an awareness in the industry that some violets cause this reaction.

I wash my face and remove makeup every night. I use Pond’s cold cream religiously, and always have. In the last year or so, I have noticed some discoloration under and above my eyes, and just chalked it off to thinner skin, getting older, etc. Just life. Everyone has something, right?

So I used the new eye shadow herein Paris. Washed my face that night, did my routine with the creams. And the next morning, my eyelids were swollen. Oh no. Of course, I had to go to class. I broken open my mini ice cube tray for the first time, and applied two cubes to my eyes, hoping the swelling would go down. Meh. I went to class, and basically held my eyebrows way up for those 3 hours. lol! The swelling was not dramatic. I don’t know that others would even notice, but to me, my eyelids felt heavy, and I noticed. (These students didn’t know me, so they wouldn’t know anything looked different.)

This continued for 4 – 5 days even though I’d stopped using the eyeshadow. I didn’t want an infection, so I thought I’d better call on a doctor. Now, in France, you need to have a prescription from a European/French doctor, and I don’t have a doctor here in France. So, I went online.

I highly recommend MobiDoctor.com, as they helped me twice since I’ve been here.

I scheduled an appointment, and had a video conference with my doctor who was Hungarian, but spoke English. I explained the situation, and she had me lean in closer to the camera lens. Yes, she said – I see it. And I see some redness/discoloration. In my head, I thought, yeah, well that’s just « dark circles » or whatever due to aging, but I said nothing. She prescribed an antibiotic ointment that I was to place inside my lower eyelids twice a day (I didn’t know that was calleda lower eyelid, btw). It reminded me of the ointment you use for your children when they have pink eye. It’s probably the same medication, but I don’t know because it’s the French equivalent.

My online consultation cost 24 euros, and the medication was 4.18 euros.

I returned to my apartment, and started reading the instructions when it hit me that the doctor thought my skin was red/discolored. I brushed it off at the time, but now it was resonating. I looked in the mirror. They’re really not dark circles, they ARE red. Hmmm…

Anyway, no makeup, and one day later after diligently tending to my eye care and making sure my hands are clean, when I thought, maybe it was the eye cream. OMG. What a vicious cycle I’ve been in. What do you do when an area needs more attention? You apply MORE eye cream. And with a fresh jar, as I said, I was applying it more lavishly. Lol! So, I stopped using the eye cream.

By day two of the eye ointment (antibiotic), the discoloration started going away. What? That wasn’t even why I called the doctor. She just pointed it out. What I’d been chalking off to « aging » was in fact an allergic reaction to the eye cream. It’s not completely gone, but it really has lessened, and I have 6 more days of the antibiotic ointment to use.

So, be careful out there. I don’t want to bash the company – because I like a lot of their products, but this one eye cream is not for me. I guess the Pond’s cream was enough for my grandmother, so it’ll be enough for me and I don’t need to add to it.