On 19 August, Chanel Beauty marked what would have been Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel’s 143rd birthday with a sweep of Chanel Beauty birthday launches across three distinct collections: additions to its Le Lift skincare line, a new Coco Mademoiselle makeup offering, and the debut of an entirely new skincare range, Sublimage Les Extraits. It is, by any measure, an ambitious way to celebrate a founder.
There is something fitting about a beauty house choosing its founder’s birthday as the moment to consolidate its position on the skincare floor. Chanel has never been a brand to do things quietly, and the breadth of what has landed today makes that clear.
Le Lift: The Science of the Chanel Beauty Birthday Launches
The two new Le Lift products arrive out of a collaboration with French start-up Damae, and both are built around Chanel’s Pro-Lift complex, formulated to penetrate deeper into the skin and target collagen with anti-ageing molecules. The science is aimed squarely at the point where collagen production naturally begins to decline, reducing the firmness and density of the complexion over time.
The choice between the two comes down to texture preference. Le Lift Crème is housed in a refillable black jar with a mauve-purple cast to its finish, and the formula itself is smooth and silky, designed to leave skin feeling firmer and more deeply hydrated while restoring some facial volume. Le Lift Fluide, by contrast, is a lightweight option in a rectangular reflective bottle with a dark cap, enriched with AHA (alpha hydroxy acids) to refine texture, minimise pores, and leave a dewy finish. The packaging on both is, in Chanel’s characteristic manner, as considered as the formula.
Coco Mademoiselle Makeup and the New Sublimage Range
The Chanel Beauty birthday launches extend well beyond skincare. The Coco Mademoiselle makeup collection brings several new pieces: Les 9 Ombres, a limited-edition smoky palette with five high-impact eyeshadows and four shimmery top coats; the Rouge Coco Crush Limited Edition Lipstick in mauve, with the house’s double C monogram engraved into the bullet; the Stylo Yeux Waterproof eyeliner; and the Joues Contraste Intense Rose Radiant Blush. There is also Le Vernis in an opaque pink and the Coco Mademoiselle Crush Absolu fragrance, which rounds out a collection built firmly around a single, coherent aesthetic.
The Sublimage Les Extraits line is presented as the most concentrated of the three launches. Each product in the range is enriched with a Vanilla Planifolia molecule said to triple the skin’s cellular regeneration, combined with Swertia to target repair and a naturally derived Chronopeptide. The collection comprises Sublimage L’Extrait, Sublimage L’Extrait De Nuit, and Sublimage L’Extrait Baume Regard, all three of which are designed to be used in conjunction with the brand’s L’Extrait De Fascia, a self-massage technique intended to help the products penetrate more deeply and plump the complexion.
The line’s guiding principle was drawn directly from a Gabrielle Chanel interview in the 1950s, in which she said: ‘Never sleep past eight o’clock in the morning. Never go to bed too late. Always remember that two hours of sleep before midnight are worth more than four before midday.’ There is something pleasingly old-fashioned about grounding a night skincare range in that sort of rigorous common sense, even as the formulations beneath are thoroughly contemporary.
What is interesting about the shape of today’s Chanel Beauty birthday launches is less any single product and more what the combination says: Chanel is pressing on all three fronts, skincare, colour, and fragrance, with a coherence that suggests a house in full control of its beauty narrative rather than one simply refreshing a hero line. The Le Lift refillable packaging, in particular, is worth noting as a considered move for a brand at this price point. The full range is available now at chanel.com.
