From the magnetic new COCO MADEMOISELLE CRUSH ABSOLU to the golden radiance of SUBLIMAGE and the nocturnal sensuality of COCO NOIR, these are the CHANEL beauty essentials to carry you into September.
September has its own kind of beauty. Summer has not quite disappeared: there is still warmth in the afternoon sun, a trace of colour on the skin, perhaps the memory of salt in the hair. But mornings arrive cooler, evenings fall earlier and suddenly there is pleasure in dressing again — a coat slipped over bare shoulders, polished shoes on rain-darkened pavements, a richer fragrance lingering against a cashmere collar. On the dressing table, the light changes too. Gold becomes softer, black more seductive, and beauty begins its slow transition towards autumn. Few houses understand the transformative power of these details quite like CHANEL.
Beauty has been woven into the Maison for more than a century. In 1921, Gabrielle Chanel and perfumer Ernest Beaux introduced N°5, a radical fragrance that rejected the convention of smelling like a single identifiable flower. Three years later, Chanel launched her first make-up collection and established the Société des Parfums CHANEL; by 1927, the House had created its first skincare line. What began as Gabrielle Chanel’s determination to free women from convention has developed into an entire beauty universe where skincare, colour and fragrance are treated with the same attention to gesture, texture and identity as a perfectly cut jacket.
For September we’ve carefully curated an edit that transports you to a world that moves between light and darkness: luminous skin, precise brows, glass-like lips and fragrances that deepen as the evenings do.
COCO MADEMOISELLE CRUSH ABSOLU: September’s New Fragrance
There is something beautifully appropriate about beginning a new season with a new perfume.
COCO MADEMOISELLE CRUSH ABSOLU is the latest interpretation of one of CHANEL’s most recognisable fragrance signatures, created by CHANEL In-House Perfumer-Creator Olivier Polge. This time, the familiar world of COCO MADEMOISELLE has been pushed somewhere richer, warmer and altogether more magnetic.
The first impression is almost dazzling: lychee and grapefruit, juicy and sharply bright. Then rose and jasmine begin to emerge before the fragrance sinks into its darker register — the signature patchouli enriched with amber, intense vanilla accents and vetiver. It is fruity, floral and woody-ambery at once, moving from brightness to sensuality rather like September itself.
Even the bottle signals the change. The familiar COCO MADEMOISELLE glass is filled with a deeper version of its pink-beige colour, contrasted by a black label and CRUSH ABSOLU picked out in gold.
This is not a fragrance that quietly disappears into the skin. It leaves a trail.
For the first dinner after summer, the first evening requiring a jacket, the first night when the air feels unmistakably different, COCO MADEMOISELLE CRUSH ABSOLU feels like September bottled.
SUBLIMAGE LA CRÈME LUMIÈRE: The Return to Ritual
If summer beauty is gloriously spontaneous, September invites ritual back into the bathroom.
At the heart of SUBLIMAGE LA CRÈME LUMIÈRE lies one of CHANEL skincare’s most prized ingredients: Vanilla Planifolia. CHANEL combines polyfractioned Vanilla Planifolia and concentrated Vanilla Planifolia water with Anthyllis extract in a cream designed to target radiance, hydration and firmness while helping the complexion appear smoother and more even.
Its story is also one of extraordinary precision. CHANEL has used its polyfractionation process for the SUBLIMAGE line since 2006, extracting and concentrating active molecules while preserving their qualities. The Maison says it takes 60,000 green vanilla fruits to produce one kilogram of polyfractioned Vanilla Planifolia.
It makes La Crème Lumière particularly suited to that post-summer moment when skin can look a little tired beneath the remains of a tan. Smooth it across the face, neck and décolleté in the morning and it becomes less another step in a routine than the beginning of getting dressed.
SUBLIMAGE L’ESSENCE DE TEINT: Skin, Only More Luminous
Rather than creating an opaque veil of foundation, SUBLIMAGE L’ESSENCE DE TEINT‘s remarkably fluid, serum-like texture melts into the complexion, combining light-reflecting particles and pigment to create skin that looks smoother, fresher and illuminated rather than heavily made-up.
It is the point where CHANEL skincare and make-up meet. The formula draws upon the SUBLIMAGE universe and Vanilla Planifolia, while the finish remains unmistakably cosmetic: polished, perfected and softly radiant.
Apply a small amount through the centre of the face and blend outwards, allowing real skin to remain visible. September does not require the summer glow to disappear; simply refine it.
LES BEIGES HIGHLIGHTING FLUID: Hold Onto the Light
LES BEIGES HIGHLIGHTING FLUID is the last of the summer sun in a bottle, exactly the sort of product that makes sense during this particular month: sheer enough to retain the ease of summer, but polished enough for the return to city life.
The lightweight fluid melts into the complexion with a translucent finish, designed to give the skin a subtle lit-from-within glow for up to eight hours. It comes in Pearly Glow, a softly pearlescent ivory, and Sunkissed, a warmer bronze.
Use it sparingly. A little tapped high onto the cheekbones, across the bridge of the nose and just above the Cupid’s bow is enough. The effect should look less like highlighter and more like someone has opened a window and let afternoon sunlight fall across the face.
STYLO SOURCILS HAUTE PRÉCISION: The Architecture of the Face
The STYLO SOURCILS HAUTE PRÉCISION is a tiny exercise in CHANEL precision. Inspired by the hair-by-hair effect of microblading, its exceptionally fine retractable tip allows individual strokes to be drawn through sparse areas before the integrated brush softens everything back into the brow.
There are nine shades, and the waterproof formula is designed to withstand water, heat and humidity for up to 12 hours. A combination of plant-derived wax, a castor-oil derivative and jojoba esters gives the pencil its glide.
The result should never look overly drawn. Think definition rather than drama: the subtle architecture around which the rest of the face falls into place.
ROUGE COCO GLOSS: A Lacquered Lip
After years dominated by matte lips, gloss once again feels wonderfully decadent.
ROUGE COCO GLOSS gives lips the sort of wet, lacquered shine that immediately changes the face. Its non-sticky gel texture is designed to hydrate for up to eight hours, with finishes ranging from translucent and shimmering to richer, more opaque colour.
For September, there is something particularly chic about keeping the rest of the face almost bare – luminous foundation, brushed brows, a suggestion of highlighter – and allowing a glass-like lip to provide the polish.
Slip it into an evening bag beside a phone and a miniature fragrance. Nothing more is required.
COROMANDEL PARFUM: The Private World of Gabrielle Chanel
Few fragrances carry the private world of Gabrielle Chanel quite as evocatively as COROMANDEL.
Her apartment at 31 rue Cambon was famously filled with Chinese Coromandel lacquer screens, their dark surfaces alive with gilded landscapes, flowers and exotic imagery. Chanel was captivated by them; she once recalled almost fainting with happiness upon seeing a Coromandel for the first time. They became part of the visual language of her home and, eventually, the inspiration for one of LES EXCLUSIFS DE CHANEL’s most extraordinary fragrances.
In COROMANDEL Parfum, Olivier Polge intensifies that world. The composition is profoundly ambery, with swirls of frankincense and Andalusian labdanum creating darker, smoky warmth.
Imagine the lacquered screens of rue Cambon illuminated after dark, gold catching against black as candles burn somewhere beyond them. COROMANDEL has that same sense of concealed splendour. It does not simply smell expensive; it smells private.
COCO NOIR Eau de Parfum: Black After Dark
If COROMANDEL belongs to the mysterious interior of 31 rue Cambon, COCO NOIR belongs to the moment its doors open onto Paris at night.
Black has always occupied a particular place in the CHANEL vocabulary. Gabrielle Chanel stripped it of mourning and allowed it to become modern, elegant and seductive. COCO NOIR applies the same paradox to fragrance: darkness used to make something luminous.
It opens with the brightness of bergamot, before rose and geranium rose leaf emerge through the heart. Beneath them sits a deeper trail of patchouli and tonka bean.
The bottle is part of the seduction: an opaque black rectangle edged and lettered in gold. On a dressing table at night, it looks almost architectural.
Where COCO MADEMOISELLE CRUSH ABSOLU has the electricity of attraction, COCO NOIR possesses something quieter and more assured. This is fragrance for dark restaurants, theatre seats, hotel bars and the journey home long after midnight.
A New Season, the CHANEL Way
September does not demand reinvention. Its beauty lies in adjustment. A richer cream pressed into skin as the mornings cool. The remaining glow of summer caught high on the cheekbones. A brow drawn with greater precision. Gloss catching the light of a restaurant table. A perfume chosen because the air has finally become cool enough to carry it properly.
For more than a century, CHANEL has understood that beauty is rarely about one grand transformation. It is found in the accumulated effect of exacting details: the line of a brow, the gleam of a lip, the texture of skin and, finally, the invisible trail of fragrance left behind as you walk into the September night.
