Bioderma: A Love Story

Me and Bioderma.

I thought it was never going to happen, I really did. No, beauty blogging world, I said. I am set with my Liz Earle Cleanse and Polish. I am good. I don't need a water that requires the use of wasteful cotton pads in my life. No thank you. Stop poking me with the bottle, cheers.

And then came the whole "double cleanse" routine, courtesy of our Goddess, Caroline Hirons, and that was it.

The facial equivalent of shampoo's legendary "rinse and repeat" genius move, the double cleanse is essentially the action of removing one's makeup with one product (like, for example, a micellar water) and doing a slightly deeper, generally muslin-cloth based cleanse with another.

It really does make sense: you don't want to be pushing makeup into your skin with heat and muslin, no sir. A micellar water just makes things feel so much cleaner, letting you go deeper with your proper cleanser. Great stuff.

And now on to the micellar water in question: Bioderma.

Having spent four years consuming beauty blogger- and vloggerdom (mmm good start to this sentence, not) I remember the first people I ever heard mentioning this stuff was the Pixiwoo sisters and from there Bioderma seems to have spread like wildfire.

It really does look like a water, doesn't seem to have much of a smell to it and does a very good job of taking off your maquillage.

It beats all other eye makeup removers I have tried in terms of how little volume is needed to get the job done, but what I will say is that it still doesn't trump my old fave, Liz Earle, in terms of effortlessly removing everything, and I mean everything - with Bioderma, I find it looks as though my face and particularly lashes are squeaky clean but I wake up with tell-tale panda eye that means things clearly weren't quite as makeup free as I thought.

So why the love fest? And why have I just bought the biggest size?!

(To clarify, this is the travel size, repurchased for convenience on the road)

The answer is that it's just bloody useful to have around. It halves the amount of rubbing I have to do with my Liz Earle, which doesn't necessary irritate my eyes but rather fills them with white cream; it's also great for if my skin is feeling a little sluggish mid afternoon but I don't feel the urge to properly wash it again; and I think it's best for makeup boob recovery - the nozzle is perfectly sized for sticking a cotton bud in it, making sorting out mascara mayhem and liner lunacy a walk in the makeup park.

So, yes, I never thought it would happen, but four months on, and it really does feel like love.