Three years after creating a make-up line, Gabrielle Chanel introduced her skincare collection of 15 products in 1927, which showed how the French couturier was keen on offering beauty products as much as garments and perfumes.
Almost a century onward, her eponymous brand has become a leading producer of luxury skincare products through its investment in research, including a collaboration with a plant biotech company that gave an edulis-derived ingredient featured in Le Lift range, launched in 2014.
Chanel Research further shows its "green chemistry" prowess through a new generation of Le Lift creams composed of 94% natural-origin ingredients, starring a concentrate extracted from seeds of alfalfa organically grown in France.
The frail-looking plant owes its nutritional richness to a root system that is able to draw nutritive elements from the soil to nourish its cells. Alfalfa leaves, sprouts and seeds are taken as herbal medicine for various conditions as well as a source of vitamins.
The alfalfa botanical concentrate is combined with the signature edulis ingredient in the upgraded skin-firming creams, available in three textures, from a fresh and lightweight feel to a rich enveloping balm.
Other Le Lift formulas include the serum, which primes the skin to receive full benefit from the cream, and V Flash serum, applied before the serum and cream as a beauty quick fix or to enhance firming effects
On skin ageing, the legendary designer liked to say: "Nature gives you the face you have at 20. Life sculpts your face at 30. But it's up to you to earn the face you have at 50."
Giving the skin a massage is a part of the self-care to help maintain a smooth and firmer-looking complexion.
While optimising the cream's effects, Chanel's three-step ritual involves pinching along nasolabial folds and frown lines, then pinching deeply along jawline and on cheeks, and lastly, rubbing the nasolabial folds, frown lines, cheeks and forehead while lifting the skin upwards, to respectively smooth, firm and promote microcirculation of the skin.
