[productsamplefromCHANEL] It’s not always the case that the skin care arm of a luxury brand lives up to the other areas of the brand, but I’ve always rated Chanel skin care. The first time I really thought wow was with the Weekend Serum – that worked wonders at the time. The Hydra Beauty Camellia Water Cream is an extension of the Hydra Beauty range, and I suspect something that caters more to the Asian market who love watery, essence style lotions and creams.
It’s not, as you might think, a watery consistency – to my mind it falls nicely into the lotion category which makes it an ideal pre-make up moisturiser, and that’s its main purpose. The star of the formula is extract of white camellia (Camellia Alba PFA) that helps skin hold on to hydration. If you wonder what the PFA stands for, it’s ‘polyfractioning’ of active ingredients – a process used by Chanel for ultra-purity. Chanel, by the way, has its own beauty labs with over 250 scientists across three countries (Japan, France and USA). They use a lot of camellia so cultivate their own so they don’t run out and harvest between January and March (it’s a winter flowering plant).
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You know when something just feels immediately at home on your skin? Well, that’s the effect that Camellia Water Cream has on mine. Something to do, perhaps, with hyaluronic acid in the mix because my complexion jumps for joy with that wonder ingredient. The brand also champions Blue Ginger in their creations, and that’s made to the PFA standard as well. It’s a good daily antioxidant. A dab of pearl pigments in the formula is helpful for radiance if you’re going bare-skinned – you can see that it brings light to the complexion – but they’re not entirely lost if you apply coverage.
I’ve got a feeling that this is going to be quite addictive – sometimes I add primer, sometimes I add moisturiser, sometimes I add nothing at all before foundation, but this is like back-lighting in a bottle and once you’ve used it, it will be hard to give up! You won’t like it if you prefer a matte complexion. It’s launching 19th April for £48/30ml.
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