🫧 Three Hard to Find Things in Spain

Peanut butter is now widely available; maybe there's hope for shaving cream?

One thing I miss about living in the US is shopping for personal care items—things like lotion, shampoo, and facial cleanser. Of course, Spain has these things, but I have to go to a few different places to get them. Going to one store to get everything I want with clearly marked prices is a convenience I took for granted until I moved here.

Sure, I can buy them online, but shipping to an apartment is weirdly more complicated than shipping to a house. In Spain, you or a designated neighbor have to be home to receive a package. This sounds simple enough, except sometimes packages arrive days earlier or later than anticipated. Your package goes into purgatory if no one is home or reachable by phone. Not every building has a portero (a person overseeing the comings and goings of people and packages), so if a delivery person can’t enter, they can’t leave it on a doorstep. Sometimes there’s an option to deliver to a locker, which is convenient, but not always available.

This isn’t how I want to live, committing myself to a 12-hour home stay for a 10 euro bottle of shampoo. I’d rather walk into a store and buy what I need rather than pay for expedited Amazon shipping and wait for the doorbell to ring—which, by the way, is aggressively loud and has no volume control. So off I go to the shops!

So Many Shops—But Where Is Everything?

I live within a 30-minute walking distance of almost everything I need to feel fresh and clean. But it took me a few months to determine which stores sold what when I first got to Spain. Here are five types of shops and the personal care items they sell:

1. Supermarkets: Like in the US, Spanish supermarkets sell basic shampoo, conditioner, lotion, cotton facial pads, Q-tips, razors, etc. You’ll find a mix of brands like Nivea, TRESemmé, and generic store-branded products.

2. Farmacias: Pharmacies sell over-the-counter and prescription medicines and other personal care products, like cough drops, bandages, and mouthwash. They feature a range of body and facial cleansers and lotions with SPF. Most sell French skincare brands like Avène, La Roche-Posay, and American-based brands, such as Cetaphil and Cerave. They also sell earplugs, antigen tests for COVID-19 and flu A/B, and simple test kits for urinary tract infections.

3. Droguerías: Drugstores don’t sell medication or administer vaccines, but they are the closest thing Spain has to a Walgreens or CVS. Here we won’t find gum, magazines, or White Cheddar Cheez-Its, but we will find personal care products at low to medium price points. Some droguerías are more upscale, selling cologne, perfumes, and cosmetics, while others are more basic, selling home cleaning products and pet food. All of them sell nail polish and travel-sized toiletries.

4. Herbolarios: Natural markets sell organic packaged foods, hard-to-find plant-based proteins, like seitan, and organic beauty brands like Weleda, makers of the best cream ever, Skin Food (amazing), and a cellulite oil (WTF). The smell of vitamins and supplements that hits your nose when you walk into these stores is universal.

5. Cosmetic shops: Sephora and El Corte Inglés (Spain’s department store) sell luxury fragrances, skincare, and cosmetics. El Corte Inglés closest to me has a Sephora built in, offering some clean beauty brands, like Drunk Elephant, and science-only brands like The Ordinary.

Now If I Could Just Find These Three Things…

Finding out which stores sold what was a triumph! However, I still can’t find a few beloved personal care items at stores in Spain:

1. Shaving Cream for Women

There’s no feminine, gender neutral, or unscented shaving cream or gel in Spain, meaning if you’re a lady and want to avoid nicks and cuts and get a clean shave, get ready to smell like a man.

Spaniards are a very perfume-based society—kids have “baby cologne” on their school supply lists—and all shaving creams sold here smell like some derivative of Old Spice. Which is a pleasant scent, but I prefer more floral and herbal options.

Above all, it pisses me off that 50 percent of the population would never consider shaving with soap while the other 50 percent are told their skin isn’t worthy of the same protection and moisture by omission.

This situation needs more bubbles | Photo by cottonbro studio

2. Rose Water Toner

The fanciest part of my very basic skincare routine involves spraying a rose water toner on my face morning and night.

I’ll never forget the moment I learned about this product’s existence—a very feminine colleague asked me one day if I’d like to freshen up with a spritz of rose water toner on my face. She always made our drab office feel floral and fun, and since that day, I’ve never been without Thayer’s Rose Water Toner, until two months after I moved to Spain.

I can find Thayer’s in travel-sized bottles, but that means more money and plastic. El Corte Inglés sells Mario Badescu, an acceptable alternative with aloe and lavender scent options. Still, it seems Monica was a trendsetter because the rose water toner is often sold out here.

3. Sunscreen With a Price Tag

It’s not the sunscreen that’s hard to find—it’s browsing the floor-to-ceiling shelves of facial SPF facial lotion brands and not knowing how much anything costs. Yes, I can ask, but I don’t want to—there are too many products. Let me do my mental girl math!

The one time I did ask, the pharmacist sold me a tinted SPF moisturizer that I ended up throwing away because it was gritty and stained my shirts orange. This is a sunny country, and I want to explore the range of SPF lotions, but the absence of pricing at the pharmacies has driven me to the supermarket. There, I found a well-priced Nivea 50 SPF for €11,99 and a generic store-branded alternative I love for half the price.

Spaniards are smart consumers—they price compare and shop around for quality. Can someone tell me how people do this at the pharmacy without price tags?

---

Are there things you struggle to find when traveling or living abroad? Leave a comment and see if someone can help you out!

---