Guerlain Abeille Royale Eye R Repair Serum

Ever since Amore Pacific Intensive Revitalizing Eye Essence got me on the eye serums and essences train, I've been obsessed with the product. It took me a full year to finish up the Amore Pacific tube, and I was happy to finally moved on to this 20mL/0.6fl. oz. dropper bottle of Guerlain Abeille Royale Eye R Repair Serum. That was January, and this post had been buried in my Draft folder since. Until now, that is. This eye serum was discontinued three years ago anyway, and replaced with a Double Serum-something rather. 

First thing first: beating the dead horse--are these eye serums and essences necessary? Nope. Technically, all you need for proper skincare is a moisturizer and sunscreen, but sunscreen is a separate post. In that sense, hell, that first cold press extra virgin olive oil in your kitchen works. No, I'm not being sarcastic, EVOO really does work--try it! Some 18 years ago, out of curiosity I tried the simplest, most basic skincare routine: the OCM - Oil Cleansing Method, and afterwards massaged the leftover oil onto to my skin as an all-in-one, once-and-done moisturizer, all to great results. If you're wondering, yes, OCM did thoroughly remove all of my waterproof sunscreen! So then why did I return to conventional and "chemical" skincare products? The answer is simpler than you think: I got bored, ha! 

 

Believe it or not, after some 6 months of using solely OCM at night and wiping my face with just water in the morning (which I still do almost 2 decades later, btw), I simply got bored. I missed the browsing and the buying, then anticipating and trying the new products. This 19-year old blog, my online product diary, is proof. I know, I know, why change what's working? But at the same time, with all the goodies out there how could I possibly limit myself to just OCM every night for the rest of my life? Life is too short not to try all the things and I can count on one hand how many products I have repeat-purchased more than twice over the years. Save for these rare unicorns, I am not loyal to any particular item or brand. 

 

But I digress. Do eye serums and essences actually make a difference? To me, yes! The occasional tightness and dryness around my eye area have stopped since I started using eye serums and essences. In fact, the whole month of June when our family was in hot and humid Japan, I skipped the eye cream in the morning and only used eye serum (Decorte Liposome Advanced Repair Eye Serum, will post soon), which worked out pretty well so I plan to keep that routine for travels, especially to a hot and humid place.

 

Anyway, this whole time I've been using this Abeille Royale Eye R Repair Serum and liking it a lot. The texture is a light pearly milk with a lovely clean and feminine fragrance, floral top notes and powdery base notes. It's very moisturizing and quick absorbing, and is quite a pleasure to apply. I don't love that it's "pearly" in appearance. This means there's shimmery mica in it, which blurs the line between skincare and makeup. Yet this is a plus for others, Rae from The Notice liked this eye serum precisely because of the shimmers for example.

 

I suppose I could switch and save this Abeille Royale Eye R Repair Serum for travels and use the Decorte and other non-shimmery eye serums at night instead. Then again, I actually have two Abeille Royale bottles from two different purchases but have only managed to use up 1/3 of the first bottle over the past 6+ months. To be fair, I use this serum only every other night, but I use it pretty liberally, two drops for my eye area and laugh lines. If I were to save it for travels, when will I ever finish it? Plus the heavy glass bottle isn't exactly travel-friendly.