Am I allergic to France? :(

[Finlesswonder]

I have to go there frequently for work and after just 2 days my skin is completely fucked. I have mild rosacea and really sensitive skin anyway, but the region I go to has really, really hard water (literally you can see limescale forming on sink draining racks), and I think that plus hotel air (must be?! Any thoughts?) completely fucks my skin. I can feel it shrink and tighten after just one night and by the time j get home it's shrivelled and red with huge breakouts, takes 4 days to get back to normal and then the cycle starts all over again.

I've tried to minimise it by using face wipes when I'm over there so I don't have to put too much water on my face but its not helping. Please help!

Probably is the hard water. Can you wash your face in Evian?

Where abouts in France are you staying? I've always found the water to be softer but I accept I come from a very hard water part of UK

France water can be awful to the skin, which I've always assumed is why they all see dermatologists on the regular and that French pharmacy skincare is such a massive industry.

I'd suggest heading to one of those pharmacies. I know Uriage does a really good cleanser for rosaceae skin (I think it's called roséliane cleansing fluid or similar) that you can use with cotton pads and doesn't require rinsing off. There's similar versions from other brands like Avène, etc. And echoing above, get some thermal water, again brand not that important although Avène's is generally seen as the best for soothing super sensitive skin, again thermal waters are a French thing as they neutralise (to a point) the impact of the hard water.

For hotel air dryness, I actually love the Laneige Cica sleeping mask, I use it on top of my normal moisturiser. I get the little sample/travel sizes especially for travelling. It's actually Korean but based on the many cicaplast baumes from French pharmacies. La Roche Posay cicaplast B5 is great as well, the Laneige is just a bit nicer to use IME and easy to travel with.

You could try taking a Brita travel water filter for washing and drinking and your own pillow case in case it's hotel detergent. The other obvious one is if you're travelling, what are you eating and drinking? Restaurant food is always saltier, but French supermarket food and bread is normally saltier than British too so you might need to drink more water

Do you fly there? That could be causing the problem if so.

I find any sort of travel flares mine up, esp sudden changes in temps ( I use the heated seat in the car, not the heater blowing at me )

This year though I haven't seen any major changes but I have been using hyaluronic acid this year as well as ensuring I moisturise regularly

Previous to the hyaluronic acid, my skin would tighten it the time it took to brush my teeth after showering

This is fantastic advice, thank you!

I'm not flying so it's not that, it's definitely a water thing.
But also what on earth do they put in hotel air?! An hour after stepping into the room I can feel my skin start to shrivel. Even when I asked them to cut off any heating or A/C, theres just something almost plane-like in many hotels IMO, I'm convinced they're pumping out some kind of fragrant compressed air.

Am going to try for some French pharmacy micellar or soothing lotion cleanser and try moisturiser with cicaplast (beneath or Iver the moisturiser?). Feels so weird not putting water on your face though, it's a pain in the ass in the shower!

It's really the lack of humidity in the room in those central air systems. If you're traveling on the regular it might be worth looking into a portable humidifier (although the hard water will probably clog it up so you'd need to use some bottled water instead). For the shower, the cleansing oils are good from the pharmacy, the Bioderma Atoderm one is really good, as are the Avene Xeracalm and Eucerin pH 5. They do tend to come in huge bottles though, but the pharmacies might stock a travel size of one of them.

I live in France! I second getting yourself to a french pharmacie and seeing what they offer. I always really highly recommend La Roche Posay and Avène. Get some thermal or micellar water and cotton pads to remove makeup/wash face and then slather (and I mean slather!) your face and neck with La Roche Posay Cicaplast B5 at night and use one of their moisturisers under makeup during the day.

I'm in the South and had the same issue when I went to the North, my skin crumbled within days, tried loads of products but only Avène and LRP could save it. No clue if water is slightly softer down here, might be!

Oh forgot to mention - as you're travelling, you could ask for some "échantillons" (testers) if they only have big products if it's just to tide you over for a few days, but sometimes they do travel sized versions.