Chanel No1 de Chanel - The Influence Of Camellia

With one half-buried in a complex subterranean environment, and the other half immersed in the atmosphere, the biochemical intelligence of plants makes them incredibly adaptable. They appear to be a life form that carries both solutions and promises. Understanding this, CHANEL incorporates many clean and sustainable plant resources into the development of skincare adapted to our era, what our skins are subjected to, and our requirements for a better world.

IT ALL BEGINS WITH WATER

Water condenses into droplets in a cloud and then falls. The droplet strikes the waxy surface of a leaf. The wax is protective, limiting the amount of water lost during evaporation and protecting the quality of the leaf. This leaf belongs to a camellia, an iconic plant for Gabrielle Chanel, who, in a visionary way, perceived its aesthetic value and its strength. To blossom, the camellia needs a mild, humid climate. It can only fully express its vitality and vigorous growth and branch out intensely.

Chosen for its microclimate and its fertile and balanced soil, CHANEL designated Gaujacq as the place to establish its camellia fields and its research laboratory. In the hands of renowned and committed experts, this camellia collection and its innovative agroecological cultivation methods are only the beginning of a human and scientific adventure carried out by CHANEL.

The water droplet now glides along the central vein, that light furrow imprinted on the flat of the leaf, which yields under the droplet's weight, letting it fall to the ground. As it strikes the light, fertile substratum, it is rapidly absorbed. Progressing among the soil particles, the droplet comes into contact with a mane of diaphanous capillaries, which cover the extremities of the camellia roots, exploring their immediate environment. They thirstily absorb the water, laden with mineral elements, and draw it inside them. They grow frenetically in the humid darkness and disappear as rapidly as they emerge from the root epidermis cells. Although invisible, cellular activity at the root extremities is vivacious. As water enters the plant, another journey begins.

AT THE HEART OF THE PLANT

Water moves from cell to cell towards the heart of the root, transporting the soil's micronutrients. This heart is protected by a cellular sleeve that acts as a muslin filter, developed to keep only the most valuable elements. This extremely high-performance filtration system selects certain elements that can follow their path in the plant, while the screen pretty blocks others.

Within a wealthy soil, this sophisticated system enables the extraction, concentration, and purification of the most relevant components, which are best adapted to the plant's needs. The degree of sensitivity of this root filter develops over time depending on its needs. CHANEL's high standards and its quest for perfection in cosmetic ingredients all begin here, deep in the roots of the camellia.

CHANEL develops customized technologies to analyze, extract, filter, and concentrate plant molecules in their laboratories. Knowing how to identify them and draw out their quintessence is part of the unique expertise of the CHANEL phytochemists. The water thus purified is now raw sap and follows its inexorable movement. The flow is ascending, and the water column is directed towards the leaves, drawn up inside a sapconducting tube. From the darkness of the roots and from within the stems, hidden by an opaque beige bark, water is channeled into the leaf's fine layer. It finds itself in full sunlight, with rays passing through it. Water exits the conducting vessels of the stem to run along the veins, which form a fine network of ducts crisscrossing the leaf. Here, the cells are inhabited by a multitude of small, intense green spheres named plastids. They capture maximum light energy, vital to the plant's metabolism.

This metabolic system also needs to be fed by another essential resource: carbon, drawn from the atmosphere in its gaseous form. To help it enter the leaves, the impenetrable wax layer is pierced with minuscule mouths, which have articulated lips to control their opening and closing.

Botanists call these little mouths stomata. Open, they provide an entrance to foliar tissue for carbon dioxide, which the plastids then transform into sugar, which in turn become complex molecules. These components, produced in the leaves, are instantly diluted in water, creating elaborated sap, which contains incomparable phytochemical wealth, decisive for growth, defense, color, and harmonious development. They are distributed across all the organs of the camellia via the pulsations of this elaborated sap. Born at the heart of the leaves, each of these components is the fruit of millions of years of evolution and adaptation, from the plant reign to predators and external stress such as drought, cold, insect attacks, and disease. The full ingenuity of the plant is expressed in its artful fixedness, meaning that it responds to constraints not by moving away but with a biochemical arsenal.

Therefore, in the unique laboratory provided by the plant cell and its exceptional creativity, CHANEL experts seek molecules of cosmetic interest. The gentle heat of light acts on water, causing it to evaporate during photosynthesis. It benefits from the open stomata to escape from the camellia and return to the atmosphere, where it once again becomes a cloud.

THE LIFE CYCLE OF THE CAMELLIA

At the end of winter, the camellia is adorned with dozens of small colored domes, which appear fragile, but are brimming with vitality. Here again, the secret of this ability to resist the cold lies in the cells. To lower the freezing point of the water, the cells build up a maximum number of soluble elements. The cells' internal solution grows considerably more concentrated, and frost resistance is also significantly increased.

The flower is a plant extravagance and an incredible luxury. The camellia flower is rich, heavy, and radiant. Its initiation, maturing, and opening require an excellent energy investment from the plant. Yet, the bloom is evanescent and disappears after a few days. CHANEL has chosen to take the incredible fresh qualities of these fully blossomed flowers and enhance them in water, obtained from several camellia varieties incorporated in the composition of its new skincare line.

Subject to the continual flow across the conducting vessels, the elaborated sap moves away from the leaf to enter the flower. The leaf plastids, brimming with chlorophyll, are green, while the plastids of Camellia japonica 'The Czar' are filled with anthocyanins and are red. A light, bright red contrasts with the veins' deep red.

In these petals, hand-picked at full turgescency, CHANEL seeks the revitalizing molecules that enhance the skin and help preserve its youthful appearance. The corolla of Camellia japonica 'The Czar', formed by all its petals, folds slightly away from the flower, and at its center, it is overshot by an elegant column composed of amalgamated stamens. The base of this column is pure white, the white of the stamen filaments. It attracts the eye and contrasts elegantly with the golden anthers that crown it. The simplicity and sobriety of this flower, along with its subtle, gleaming red hue, is characteristic of Camellia japonica 'The Czar.'

These shimmering flowers attract pollinating insects. Intoxicated by the gold of the anthers called pollen, they carry this fertile powder to another flower, a little further along the branch. It is by their intermediary that pollination and then fertilization is made possible. Deep within the pistil, the embryo will be formed. The flower's colorful attributes can now fall without further need to attract attention.

The flower becomes a fruit; the embryo is now protected at the heart of a seed, surrounded by a nourishing and protective envelope. Over the weeks, it arrives at the ultimate stage, that of a minuscule quiescent embryonic plant. It will remain at this stage, waiting for favorable germination conditions, which can sometimes take decades or even longer. It contains a vital and enduring potential.

This incredible concentration of nutritive and beneficial molecules transformed into oil that CHANEL Research has incorporated in the composition of its new beauty line. Absorbed by the skin, these very molecules will help reinforce its defenses and slow down dehydration to strengthen the vitality of the epidermis while keeping the skin looking youthful.

The external envelope of the seed develops in parallel; once whitish and tender, it is now dark, rigid, and solid, almost mineral. It is a highly efficient protective case for the embryo's survival. Once again, CHANEL was inspired by this plant genius and used the remarkably resistant seed shells by including them in the lids of the creams in its new beauty line to protect the richest, the most precious element within the skincare.

Over the months, the cells of certain leaves see their activity slow down. In turn, these leaves fall and increase the litter that protects the soil and reinforces the root system. They create a strongly biodiverse environment, favorable to optimum nutrition of the plant and its good health. Everything is linked; everything is meaningful. CHANEL observes these sober and formidably efficient ecological cycles and transposes them into their innovative and sustainable cultivation methods because respect for the living world and its harmony is also found in the skin's well-being.

Although certain leaves disappear, in the depth of the buds, a cellular pole divides inexorably and extremely actively. This zone is called the meristem, and it alone represents the extraordinary power of plants to produce large quantities of juvenile cells throughout their entire lives. The camellia is always a step ahead, working permanently to produce new stems, new branches, new leaves, and when winter comes, new flowers. Therein lies the essence of a plant that can exist and withstand time, even a long time, only by growing and regenerating itself perpetually. The plant that we too often perceive as passive and fragile owing to its fixedness is, in fact, fabulously powerful.

At a time when we are only just beginning to lift the lid on the endless diversity of the living world, its genes, and its chemistry, CHANEL has bet on the fact that the plant world still has a lot to teach us and remains a reservoir of sustainable and endlessly promising discoveries. CHANEL is permanently investigating new skincare with innovative properties at the heart of this unique aspect of plants. Understanding our era and its challenges means better anticipating what lies ahead.

Source: Chanel press release