With current exchange rate savvy shoppers are heading to France
Bargain beauty hunters are stocking up on their favourite products for less
Some luxury beauty products are less than half the price they are in the UK
Our reporter ended up saving more than £200 on her favourite goodies
Marianne made it her mission to buy a year’s worth of skincare products
With the money she saved she covered the cost of her return journey to Paris and enjoyed a delicious lunch and a glass of vin rouge too
By
Marianne Power for the Daily Mail
Published:
23:58 GMT, 19 March 2015
|
Updated:
11:19 GMT, 20 March 2015
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A beautiful spring day in Paris and where am I?
In a dark and crowded two-storey chemist in Saint-Germain, greedily piling up a shopping basket full of cheap beauty products.
I’m not the only Brit shopping here.
Scroll down for video
Forget the booze cruise – savvy British shoppers are heading to France on beauty cruises. With the current exchange rate bargain hunters can save more than half on their favourite products
Marianne with her sizeable beauty haul – she saved more than £200 buying the products in France
The place is heaving with fellow bargain-hunters hurling make-up remover and designer shampoo into their baskets.
It makes the first day of the January sales on Oxford Street look like a garden party.
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Forget booze cruises. With the exchange rate as it is (about €1.40 to the pound), British tourists are heading to France to stock up on beauty products — as are people from many other countries.
Around me I hear American accents, German voices, and see scores of Japanese girls loading up their blue plastic baskets, too.
City Pharma is one of many Paris chemists to have become a shopping mecca for tourists over the past few months, as the pound has continued to strengthen against the euro.
Marianne boards the Eurostar (left) before heading to the nearest pharmacy upon her arrival in Paris. Even the humblest of French chemists are a treasure trove for the beauty bargain hunting Brit (right)
It’s an old-fashioned, typical French pharmacy with shelves crammed from floor to ceiling with everything from high-end beauty serums to practical soaps.
There are no flashy displays or fancy signage, just lots and lots of products.
The first thing I see is the face-wash I use at home.
I pay £11 for this in Boots but here it’s €6.95, which is the equivalent of £4.90 — a saving of £6.10. Less than half the price!
Then there’s an anti-ageing serum that I bought for my mum at Christmas.
It was £45 in John Lewis but is the equivalent of £27.82 in the French pharmacy — a saving of £17.18.
On the way to the tills I bump into an older well-dressed woman, also English and in Paris with her husband, and she has exciting news.
‘Even Listerine is cheaper!’ she says. ‘It’s just a pound difference, but still.’
I follow suit and add a bottle to my basket, which is about to overflow.
The Champs Elysees boasts the biggest Sephora in the world. Sephora started in Paris but is now a global chain. It’s the size of a department store but sells nothing but make-up
‘I only came in for a lip balm and now I’m buying things I don’t even need,’ she adds with a knowing smile, as we eye up the contents of each other’s baskets.
Hers is full of bottles of a white, clear liquid called Bioderma Crealine (stocked in Lloyds pharmacy in the UK), a make-up remover that’s a third of the price it is in the UK.
She also shows me a twin-pack of something called Embryolisse Lait-Creme Concentre. ‘You’ve got to get this,’ she says.
‘The supermodels use it, apparently.’
‘So where is your husband?’ I ask.
‘He’s in a cafe. He’ll be eating dinner alone at this stage.’
She dives into another aisle and I find myself poring over the suncare products, on which I spend a small fortune each year.
French suncare is considered the best by most dermatologists — but in the UK it’s prohibitively expensive.
I pick up a bottle of La Roche Posay sun cream, which costs £17 in my local Boots. Here it’s £10.50.
Their oil-free facial suncream is an even bigger saving: it’s £7.04 here, compared with £16.50 in the UK.
All of the products Marianne picked up on her trip to Paris – she saved more than £200 buying in France
That’s a saving of £9.46 — again, less than half price.
I add them both to my basket and move on to a favourite skincare range, Nuxe, which is on sale in the new fancy MS beauty department as well as in department stores and at Space NK.
I was given one of their lip balms as a present last year and it’s gorgeous — not too shiny and very moisturising.
It’s also expensive. In MS the lip balm is £9.50, but here it’s the equivalent of £4.57.
It’s all I can do not to buy two.
But I don’t — instead I pick up a bottle of golden, shimmering body oil in a heavy glass bottle. It’s the kind of product that beauty editors would call ‘cult’ — that is, so expensive real people can’t afford it.
In MS, Nuxe Huile Prodigieuse is £34 but here it’s less than half the price (£15.49).
It would be rude not to.
I go a bit nuts when I stumble across Caudalie, a French brand known for its anti-ageing products and on sale in department stores such as John Lewis.
It’s the kind of product I would never buy at home because it’s too pricey, but here I snap up the highly rated anti-ageing serum (£45 in the UK, £27 here, a saving of £18), the hand cream (£4 at home, £1.40 here) and a mystery liquid called ‘Eau de Beaute’.
Well, with a name like that, I had to (£32 in the UK, £19.02 in France).
Because I’ve bought three Caudalie products, I qualify for a free exfoliating scrub (worth £18).
You know it’s time to leave when you start considering buying nappies just because they’re cheap.
The queues at the six tills on the ground floor are so long, I go upstairs, where there are 18 more tills.
I’ve never seen anything like it — there must be at least ten people in each queue. I spent €205, which is the equivalent of £145.24.
In the UK, these products would have cost £277.34, so I saved £132.10.
‘Is it always like this?’ I ask one of the shop assistants. ‘This is a slow day,’ she says.
With such savings to be made even on the most basic beauty products, my mission is to buy a year’s worth of skincare products, hair care and make-up — all items with a long shelf life.
Then, with the money I’ve saved, I hope to not only cover the cost of my return journey to Paris but enjoy a delicious lunch and a glass of vin rouge, too.
I began by grabbing Eurostar’s cheapest ticket — if you can travel on a weekday and book more than a month in advance, you have a good chance of getting there £69 return — and there’s no extra charge for baggage (you need an extra case to wheel your beauty haul home).
I figure that if I allow £10 for lunch and £5 for my Metro pass, I need to save £100 to make it worth my while.
After two hours in City Pharma I’m well on the way, and I’m looking for a place for lunch when I pass a Monoprix — a French supermarket — and pop in for a quick look.
I pick up an Elnet hairspray (30p cheaper) and a large bottle of liquid Marseilles soap (£13 cheaper than one I’ve seen in London).
Surprisingly, some products from big mid-level brands such as L’Oreal and Garnier are no cheaper than in the UK — but I do find a couple of bargains.
A L’Oreal eye cream is £2 cheaper, and L’Oreal Revitalift moisturiser is £7.26 cheaper. Total saved: £22.56.
I head to the Champs Elysees, where I hear there is the biggest Sephora in the world.
Marianne proudly poses with her beauty bargains outside the Louvre in Paris, France
Sephora started in Paris but is now a global chain. It’s the size of a department store but sells nothing but make-up — I feel as if I’m walking into Vegas. Really.
Pink neon, black floors, black shelves, black tiles and pumping pop music. And Brits.
In fact, I hear every language under the sun.
A middle-aged man is slumped on a chair in the corner while his wife and teenage daughter peer over Chanel and Guerlain.
I follow suit — the Guerlain Terracotta bronzer is £5 cheaper, by my rough calculations.
The biggest saving comes in Sisley — their foundation is £15 cheaper in France than in the UK.
But at £56 it’s still prohibitively expensive.
I deliberate as I walk around the store before deciding to go for it.
The YSL mascara is a tiny bit cheaper, too — at £22 instead of the usual £25, and the Chanel eyeshadows were £1.86 cheaper. Every little helps, doesn’t it?
I leave the store and am about to sit down for a coffee when I see a L’Occitane shop.
I pick up an Almond Shower Gel for £11.68, as opposed to £17.50 — a saving of £5.82. And that’s enough. I am exhausted.
I find a little bar, order my final glass of wine (another £5) and tot up what I’ve saved.
The good news is that it’s a grand total of £205.75, which covers my travel and my lunch twice over.
Ooh la la!
Then the bad news… I’ve spent £345.67.
But for that I have a year’s supply of beauty products and I’ve had a lovely day out in Paris.
As I look down the glorious view of the Champs Elysees, I try to channel the spirit of Catherine Deneuve or Isabella Rossellini and cultivate the attitude that, to quote the advertising campaign, ‘I’m worth it’. A
nd as the glass of wine goes down, I almost believe it.
Well, Paris will do that to a girl.
After a hard day’s shopping Marianne sat down for a much deserved glass of wine with lunch
WHAT WE BOUGHT IN PARIS
Guerlain Terracotta bronzer
UK: £34.50 France: £28.80 Save: £5.70
Sisley Phyto-Teint Eclat foundation
UK: £72.50 France: £56.82 Save: £15.68
YSL Mascara False Lash effect
UK: £25 France: £21.97 Save: £3.03
Clinique Superbalm Moisturising Lip Gloss
UK: £16 France: £14.20 save: £1.80
Chanel Les Ombres Eyeshadow
UK: £40 France: £38.14 Save: £1.86
L’Oréal Paris Revitalift Laser X3 Renew Advanced Anti-Ageing Moisturiser
UK: £19.99 France: £12.73 SAVE: £7.26
Savon De Marseille Extra Pure Soap
UK: £16.90 France: £3.89 SAVE: £13.01
L’Oreal BB roll-on eye cream:
UK: £9.99 France: £7.98 SAVE: £2.01
L’Oreal Elnett hairspray
UK £4.20 France: £3.90 SAVE: 30p
L’Occitane bath oil/shower oil
UK: £17.50 France: £11.97 Save: £5.53
Vichy Normaderm Purifying Gel Cleanser
UK: £11 France: £4.90 SAVE: £6.10
Avene Cleanance Mask
UK: £15 France: £6.69 Save: £8.31
Avene Spring Water Spray
UK: £5.99 France: £3 Save: £2.99
Bioderma Crealine H20 make-up remover
UK: £15.25 France: £4.88 SAVE: £10.37
La Roche Posay Anthelios suncream SPF 50
UK: £17 France: £10.50 Save: £6.50
La Roche Posay Anthelios Shine Free suncream SPF 30
UK: £16.50 France: £7.04 Save: £9.46
NUXE Rve de Miel Ultra Nourishing Lip Balm
UK: £9.50 France: £4.57 Save £4.93
Nuxe Huile Prodigieuse hair oil
UK: £34 France: £15.49 Save: £18.51
Caudalie Vinexpert Firming Serum
UK: £45 France: £27.82 Save: £17.18
Caudelie Eau de Beaute facial spray
UK: £32 France: £19.02 Save: £12.98
Caudalie hand cream
UK: £4 France: £1.40 Save: £2.60
Caudalie exfoliator (free gift) SAVE: £18
Klorane Oatmilk Gentle Dry Shampoo Spray
UK: £8 France: £5.60 Save: £2.40
Klorane Shampoo
UK: £6.50 France: £3.52 SAVE: £2.98
Klorane conditioner
UK: £8.50 France: £4.86 SAVE: £3.64
Phyto hair mask
UK: £24 France: £14.11 SAVE: £9.89
Embryolisse Lait Creme Concentre moisturiser
UK: £20 France: £8.42 Save: £11.58
Listerine mouthwash
UK: £4.60 France: £3.45 Save: £1.15
TOTAL:
Cost of trip: £89
Savings on products: £205.75
TOTAL SAVINGS: £116.75
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