Review and Swatches: Chanel Les Beiges 2019

I’ve always admired and lusted after the Chanel Les Beiges collections, meant to be simple and natural. I didn’t always used to a “natural makeup” person, but in the past few years, I’ve come to really love the fresh, barely made up skin with more natural eye make up. And in these past few years, I’ve come to love the look and feel of the Chanel Les Beiges collections.

It wasn’t until this year that I finally loved the new items in the collection so much that I wanted to get it right away, and that I did. Like in previous years, the collection includes a base, powder, eyeshadow palette, and lip balm, but this year’s variations are particularly interesting to me.

Water-Fresh Tint

This tint really caught my eye, but I wasn’t sure it would quite work for me just by looking at descriptions online. It’s described as tint with a “water-fresh sensation and a radiant, healthy-looking glow,” and it has one of the most unique textures I’ve ever tried in a base product. It has little droplets of pigment that are suspended in a gel.

According to the website, you can use this in one of three ways: as a primer, as a lightweight foundation, and as a makeup retoucher. It retails for $65 for 30ml/1oz and available on the Chanel website, department stores where Chanel is sold such as Nordstrom, and Ulta. There are only 6 shades available, but because it’s so sheer, there is some flexibility. I chose the shade Medium Plus, and I have NC30-35 skin – warm with olive undertones. I also tried Medium Light and Medium. Medium light would work on me in the winter, and Medium fits my skin at around NC30, but I picked the darker one because I plan on wearing this through the summer and I tan pretty quickly.

It also comes with a brush that you’re meant to use to apply, but honestly, I find it easier to use my hands. The texture feels like a liquidy essence, and becomes slightly more tacky as you blend it in, much like how MAC Face and Body does, although the Chanel tint feels much more watery and lightweight. It’s an interesting texture, but I love it. It feels a little bit like applying water, so it feels very fresh. I can imagine that this would feel so nice in the summer when it’s very hot and humid.

Here are some photos of the product on my hand, halfway through blending with the pigment mixed into the liquid, and then fully blended. You can see that once the pigments start to blend, the pigmentation really comes through, but then blends completely into my skin, leaving it with a nice dewy finish.

The finish is certainly very glowy and fresh faced. You’re not going to get very much coverage with this at all. It’s very very light coverage, and will only give you a slight tint at best. This doesn’t cover any of my spots, but I do notice just a slight blurring of the pores and a more even skintone after application. What I love is that although it’s glowy, it doesn’t feel greasy or heavy at all. It really just feels like I moisturized my face with a watery essence – and it has that slightly tacky, but not sticky, feeling to it that goes away after it sinks in.

I was also surprised with the wear time. I thought it would make my skin look greasy or too dewy after a few hours, but it stays intact on my skin through the day. Yes, I do start to look dewy (that oily skin life), but I still managed to look fresh faced rather than an oil puddle, which I think is due to the gel texture.

Out of sheer laziness, I tend to wear this on its own under powder. I prefer light coverage anyway, so the coverage is fine for me. I have tried layering another (light coverage) foundation over it and it applied just fine. While it’s still setting, and still in that slightly tacky stage, foundation applies just fine over it. If you don’t have oily skin, I’m sure this would work well as a dewy primer.

I don’t really touch up my makeup throughout the day, so I can’t speak to that. I do think it would definitely add that extra fresh dewy look, but I’m more likely to take of my makeup and start over rather than adding something over my existing makeup.

I was really surprised with how much I liked this. I was really unsure going into it, but after trying it out for myself while I was in store, I love the light texture, and I can see this being a summer staple. Even if you have oily skin, I wouldn’t automatically rule this out. My only caution would be recognize how light coverage this is. It’s more in line with a tinted moisturizer, and it may even be less coverage than some of the tinted moisturizers I have.

Les Indispensables Eyeshadow Palette

This palette was the reason I went to the Chanel counter in the first place. Ever since I saw previews of this palette in the fall, I knew that I wanted it. The neturals in the range of cool and warm tones, plus the variety in depths and finishes had me sold already.

This palette retails for $70 for .22oz/6.2 g and a total of 9 shadows. It’s definitely less product per shadow than with many other palettes, but it’s on par for Chanel. I bought this palette for the convenience of having multiple complete looks in one small palette.

The shades in this palette are definitely neutrals. There are some warm tones and some cool tones, but they fall pretty neutral. There are a range of matte and shimmery finishes as well as light highlight shades to lid shades to darker liner or crease shades. I find that it’s a great range of shades, and the layout divided into trios is really easy for me to use.

The shades included are:

• A shimmery light champagne beige
• A shimmery mid tone neutral brown
• A matte neutral brown
• A shimmer light beige pink
• A shimmer silvered taupe
• A matte cool grey brown
• A shimmery bronze
• A satin deep neutral brown
• A slightly shimmery warm plum brown

All of the shades, from the mattes to the shimmers, applied really well with both fingers and brushes. The shadows were pigmented, but not heavily saturated or pigmented, and blended really well. I don’t always love the formula of Chanel’s shimmery shadows since they can be kind of powdery, but that wasn’t the case with these. I was really impressed.

The wear time on these shades was also not an issue. They wear for the full day without fading or creasing.

This may be just another neutral palette, but if you love compact palettes, or just love neutral palettes, this is a good one to add to your collection. I know I’ll be getting a lot of use out of these shades as they are just the perfect balance of neutral tones to work as every day looks for me. It’s really hard to find that balance AND have something that’s easy to travel with, so this will be an essential.

Overall, I was really impressed with this year’s selections. I tried out the powder and really liked the soft matte finish compared to previous years’ more luminous finishes, but I have more than enough powders at the moment, and I tend to only use a couple powders at a time. Since it’s permanent, I’m not in a rush to purchase it yet. There are also tinted lip balms, but they didn’t really interest me. I love the simplified look and routine these all create, and am pleased with what I purchased!

I did a quick look using the Water Fresh Tint on its own, plus the darker trio of shades (on the right side) of the palette. I absolutely love how everything turned out!

On my cheeks I’m wearing the Buxom Primer Infused Blush in Seychelles and Charlotte Tilbury Beauty Light Wand in Peachgasm.

I’m curious – what do you all think of these? Have you tried anything yet?

As always, thanks for reading.