Sisley makes it into Moneybags Monday again, this time with its Fluid Sun Cream for the body. Offering a sun protection factor of 30, it has a double UVA/UVB filtration system as well as the ‘powerful botanical moisturisers’ shea butter and cucmber. Shea butter and cucumber! Where are Sisley shopping for their ingredients? The Angel Gabriel’s holy pantry? Are the cucumbers gilded with gold?

Enough of the joking, because I happen to adore Sisley and just about all of their products. They are quality with a capital Q. The more I ask around, the more I nose about into the bathroom cabinets of friends (and even people I don’t know that well – I have a good root about when I use their bathrooms!) the more I see Sisley popping up. Granted, these are people with a bit of disposable cash – they’re not worrying too hard about the gas bill arriving. They work tremendously hard and treat themselves to tremendously luxurious things, which is fair play. Some luxurious things seem to be a bit of a waste of money  (I’m thinking: first class seats on the Heathrow Express (why?), table water that costs £6.80 a litre) but Sisley, if you can afford it, is worth every penny.

I’m going to bore you with a little anecdote about the Sisley Fluid Sun Cream. Do try to stay awake – matchsticks to prop eyelids with are on the little ledge next to the door. Nobody may leave the room.

Here I am almost exactly eight years ago, standing on a sandbank in the Maldives. Literally a sandbank in the middle of the ocean. No tree, no rock, no shelter. It’s about two in the afternoon and I am on the sandbank (the boat has dropped us off and left us) with a photographer, an assistant, Justin the hairstylist, a stylist and a stylist’s assistant. Oh, and a male model. I forgot about him. Davide. The sun is beating down and we are trying to do a fashion story for Esquire magazine, but it is literally about seventy-five-thousand degrees. What am I wearing on my skin? SISLEY SUN CREAM! I went brown as a nut! No burning, no redness – and my skin was as soft as it had ever been. I nearly fell off the (very expensive) bar stool that night when I was told how much the sun cream actually cost, but that’s not the point.

I have been in weaker sun wearing higher SPF than this and fried to a crisp, so I have no doubt that advertised SPFs vary greatly in their actual performance. But I would actually use this fluid as a body cream without going in the sun if it wasn’t such a waste – it’s so smoothing and moisturising!

Let’s come crashing back to earth and the fact that this spray-on sun fluid costs £80 for 200ml – expensive by any standards. A bottle does last more than a week’s hols – I have had two bottles of this so far, and both did pretty well even with twice-daily all-over use. If you, like me, have completely spasmodic fits of retail frenzy at airports then this might be well up your street. It’s the Hermès of sun creams – just don’t leave it lying out on the sunlounger!

Sisley’s Fluid Body Sun Cream (SPF 30) is £80 from Harrods – for more details, click HERE!