I first bought Bioderma’s Sensibio Eye Contour Gel a few years ago in Paris; I had forgotten to pack my beloved Pai Echium Eye Cream and so I hot-footed it to the nearest Pharmacie to find something similar. I was in Paris for a cosmetics shoot and my call sheet indicated that there were over ten makeup tweaks and changes, most of them involving the eyes; my eyes are particularly irritable and I knew that my skin would be sore and red by the end of the day. Boo hoo.
As a rule, makeup artists in France tend to carry excellent skincare in their kits (it was through working in Paris as a model that I first discovered brands like Bioderma and Embryolisse and Vichy) but I wasn’t going to risk being left high and dry if my options turned out to be a baby wipe and a sachet of scented hand cream. (Has happened.) So off I went to the Pharmacie. I actually sauntered in looking for the DioptiCalm eye cream from a brand called Lierac, but they didn’t have it. Diopticalm is an amazing eyelid balm that really has quite a profound soothing, refreshing effect if you’re knackered and your eyeballs feel like hot coals. But it was nowhere to be seen and so I asked the assistant for something similar, in my best Del Boy French.

After some bad miming involving eye-rubbing and streaming tears and an alarming reenactment of a skin inflammation episode, during which I grasped desperately at my face as though it was on fire, we finally settled on Sensibio Eye Gel as a g...