Chanel Enters Sustainable Beauty Realm With No.1 De Chanel Collection

In the quest for eternal youth, anti-ageing beauty ranges have become a dime a dozen, each one promising preservation and one-upping the last. Now, Chanel believes it may have cracked the code to anti-ageing skin science.

- Amanda Chai

French luxury house Chanel recently debuted its new beauty line that cohesively integrates skincare, makeup and a fragrance mist, No.1 de Chanel. Nine products, ranging from a hybrid lip-and-cheek product to eye cream, are tied together by red camellia extract, the signature active ingredient.

It is “a holistic approach to beauty” tailored for today’s urban woman, says Chanel’s international scientific communication director Dr Armelle Souraud. Dr Nathalie Volpe, international innovation, research and development director, adds: “We wanted to create a new ritual to support the daily life of a woman. This line is imagined for the woman with an active lifestyle.”

The products were created around the “five main concerns women have with age – wrinkles, pore visibility, loss of elasticity, discomfort and lack of radiance”, she adds. They also aim to address what other anti-ageing products in the market have neglected: the early stages of skin ageing.

The key is understanding senescence, the process of biological ageing in which a cell ages and permanently stops dividing, but does not die. These cells can comprise up to half of the total skin cells and disrupt the functioning of other active cells, leading to visible signs of ageing. Chanel found that red camellia extract effectively delayed the first step – when cells start to slow down – improving cellular vitality and enabling cells to stay healthy for longer, says Dr Volpe.