If 2021 was the year of Chanel Nº5, 2022 opens a new chapter for the French luxury house. This year, Chanel is taking it back to the start with the number one. Enter Nº1 de Chanel (numero un de Chanel): an exciting new nature-inspired collection of skincare and makeup.
Nº1 de Chanel is hugely exciting as it’s a brand new line, complete with a whole new suite of products. It now sits alongside the popular Hydra Beauty, Le Lift, Le Blanc and Sublimage lines. And while these other lines address hydration, lifting, brightening and anti-ageing respectively, Nº1 de Chanel is focused on skin vitality.
Jung Ho-yeon, of Squid Game fame, is one of six faces fronting the new campaigns for Nº1 de Chanel.
The idea is skincare and beauty products are meant to preemptively work against the earliest signs of ageing. In its research, the brand worked around a concept and process called ‘senescence’. This tricky-sounding word simply describes the process of cellular ageing and degrading. For skin cells, that means losing its vitality and the ability to repair and renew itself. With these in mind, the skincare of Nº1 de Chanel is as much preventative as it is actively nurturing.
The key ingredient at the heart of the line is red camellia, a variety of camellia Japonica nicknamed ‘the Czar’. It was natural for Chanel to look at the camellia as an ingredient, as it’s one of the house’s dearest icons. It took two decades of researching over 2,000 varieties of camellia to find the red Czar, which was found to have the greatest revitalising effect on skin.
Nº1 de Chanel’s packaging breaks new aesthetic ground for Chanel beauty. Rather than the house colours of black and white, the design takes its chromatic cues from the red camellia hero ingredient for a bold and distinctive new look.
The Nº1 de Chanel line itself consists of nine products, six of which are skincare. There is a powder-to-foam cleanser, a brand new cleansing texture and format for the brand; a lotion, serum, eye cream, moisturiser and serum-in-mist. There are two colour products: a sheer, lightweight liquid foundation and a multi-use lip and cheek balm. Rounding it off is Nº1 de Chanel L’eau Rouge, a fragrance mist meant as a sensorial complement to the regimen.
Below, a look at the complete lineup of products from Nº1 de Chanel, which is available now on Chanel Beauty’s e-shop, and from 6 January at the brand’s boutiques and counters.