Chanel AW17 Makeup Collection Review: Travel Diary

by Ruth Crilly | Sep 5, 2017

Imagine how fast my heart was beating when I received this press pack from Chanel – I honestly thought that I had been sent a special travel diary, complete with cute little double-c sticky page markers and lovely postcard inserts. After my eye-rolling over The Happiness Planner, with its vom-inducing inspirational quotes, I couldn’t have been more excited about the arrival of a chic grey travel journal.

Grown-up. Understated.

I mean, I’m not going on any travels any time soon (other than our massive family relocation, which is a whole other story) but in terms of stationery p*rn, a Chanel travel journal would surely be way up there on the top shelf.

As it turned out, the Travel Diary was merely a very attractive press release – filled with beautiful photos, but nowhere for me to scribble down my thoughts about the bleak Minnesota landscape or what have you. My soul was somewhat soothed, however, by the small cloth bag underneath the press pack, which contained a selection of products from the new Autumn-Winter Chanel makeup collection.

The collection is called (you might have guessed) Travel Diary and it’s the latest stroke of cosmetic genius from Chanel’s global creative makeup designer, Luca Pica. Luca drew inspiration from a road trip along the Californian coast, and she’s come up with a really evocative palette of contrasting tones – the warmth of bright city lights and a vivid red sunset, the grey, murky shades of a sky at dawn, the flecked gold of cool sand. I think that visually, as a collection, it’s just beautiful.

I thought that the best way to review the collection would be on video, so that you could see the various products being used, but I’ll briefly pick up on a few of my stand-out favourites here, too. (You can skip straight to the video if you scroll down the page.)

I sparked up an instant love affair with the Rouge Allure lipstick in First Light*, an almost neon orange-red with a soft matte finish, and surprised myself by liking the Rouge Coco lipstick in Daylight, a pearly peachy-pink that I should hate, but can’t stop wearing. It just looks so sumptuous and juicy and shiny. Regard:

Fabulous with a dirty, smokey eye. Or eyes, because yes, I did both of them. You can find Daylight at Selfridges here* – it’s Chanel’s hydrating lipstick formula, which is buttery and soft and almost like a tinted lip balm, though with far more pigment and a longer-lasting finish. And this is First Light:

First Light has a velvet finish (matte, but not a moisture-sapping matte) and I think it’s just stunning. I can imagine it’ll be the sell-out piece from the whole collection, because it’s one of those colours that makes you feel as though you’ve really given your makeup bag a bit of a shake up. Just one slick of this bright lipstick can update an entire look – it’s a showstopper and I’d wear it all year round. Will wear it all year round! You can still find a few of these at Selfridges* at time of writing.

Not all of the lip offerings did it for me – I’ve never been particularly enamoured with the weightless liquid lipstick Rouge Allure Ink formula from Chanel, and the limited edition Highway shade for Travel Diary didn’t impress.

Actually I take that back – the shade impressed me, a brighter-than-bright peachy tone, but I simply can’t get on with the Rouge Allure Ink formula. I find it messy to apply, even if the feel of it is beautiful and barely-there. Perhaps it’s just me, and I’m a clumsy fool, but I’ve never been able to get a neat application, even with neutral shades.

So perhaps one to test out before you invest, should you be besotted with the shade – you can actually get a good feel for how the Ink applies by testing on the back of your hand. It’s very fluid and – I think – difficult to apply in an even layer.

Moving on to eyes, and my favourite product would be the Ombre Premiere longwear shadow in Memory. Watch the video to see how it creates the most flattering wash of warm, sandy-bronze across the lids. It’s shimmery, but in a very low-key, non-ridiculous way – no glitter, but a gorgeous sort of 3D effect that creates sultry areas of light and shadow. You can find Memory at Selfridges* – it’s £25.

And then there’s the Palette Essentielle, which is an all-over, 3-in-1, conceal/highlight/colour face palette that joins the main Chanel makeup collection. I have to admit to being perplexed by this all-cream palette, at first – the concealer section seemed too large, the “colour” section too reddish in tone to be useful for face or for eyes. But actually, the concealer works brilliantly as a touch-up foundation when out and about, the highlighter is creamy and adds a beautiful sheen to cheekbones and the colour isn’t actually as far-fetched as it looks.

I’m showing you the “medium” version here, which is perhaps slightly too dark for me – there’s a lighter and a darker palette – but it was more the warmth of the colour section that confused me. It seemed a little too red to use on cheeks, but in practice I actually think that it didn’t look too weird on me and I really liked it on the eyes and lips too. Take a look at the video and let me know what you think of it buffed into my cheeks – I’m going to try and get hold of the lighter palette and test that one out as a comparison. It’s a whopping £52 for the Palette Essentielle (John Lewis here*) but I suppose if you used it daily, or could take it out as your only compact, it would make a good (if rather fancy) investment.

Right: viewing goggles on, hit play.