I’ve always found summer makeup collections to be the most freeing – light textures and fun colours galore – and Chanel’s cruise 2017 line does a lot to reaffirm that opinion. The main colours are bronze (naturally), coral (of course) and a rather unexpected deep emerald green.

The first thing that caught my eye from this collection was undoubtedly the Les Beiges Healthy Glow Luminous Colour powders. I’ve heard so many good things about the amazing quality of Chanel bronzers from friends and fellow makeup lovers before, but hadn’t tried one till now. This new addition to the Les Beiges line is sort of like a subtly illuminating bronzer meant for all-over use. It gives your skin a warm, luminous glow and because it’s quite sheer you can use it pretty liberally without worrying about turning yourself orange. I was recommended the Medium Light shade for my (NC15) skin, and although I was surprised at first to be matched to something other than the lightest colour, it totally made sense once I realized how sheer the formula was. As with all Chanel powder products, this has a light rose scent to it.

The star of the cruise 2017 show was (for me at least) the limited edition Inimitable Waterproof Mascara in Vert Profund which was, indeed, profoundly green. I don’t think I’ve ever used mascara that wasn’t black, so although I approached this with a healthy dose of skepticism I ended up being thrilled with the final effect. It’s a dark enough emerald green that it didn’t look downright kooky in real life, while still being interesting and very eye-catching. Like, very VERY eye-catching. I noticed a couple of people I interacted with during the day did double takes, so if you want to really draw attention to your eyes, this would be the product to buy!

The Stylo Yeux Waterproof in Horizon is another limited edition colour for the season, and though it looks quite black it actually smudges out to reveal a grey-green undertone that beautifully compliments the mascara. Unfortunately despite my best efforts I couldn’t really capture the subtle green hue, but it’s definitely more evident in real life, especially when paired with emerald lashes! I had a preconceived notion of pencil liners being very clumsy to use, but the fine tip of this stylo coupled with a great formula (i.e. one remained workable for long enough to carefully smudge out with a brush before setting fast) made me forget my allegiance to liquids and gels.

Finally, I got to test Rouge Coco Shine in Golden Sand from the collection’s lip products. It’s weird – I seldom pick up brown nudes for myself, but whenever they find their way into my stash they end up being the shades I reach for the most. This swatched a bit rosier than it looked in the tube, and turned out to be a fabulous example of what I like to call a “No-brainer Nude” aka the kind of colour that works any look and that you end up reaching for over and over again.

Here are some swatches from the collection:

And so you can kind of see them in context, here’s a FOTD I did using all of the above as well as some nude-ish mattes from the Make Up For Ever Artist Palette Vol 4 on my lids for definition. It just isn’t in my nature to skip eyeshadow!

The grey-green of the eyeliner is a little more evident in this shot, as is the glow from the Les Beiges bronzer:

When I was finished, I was struck by how editorial the look turned out to be. The green mascara really pushed this into the category of makeup that is simple yet striking and although I worried at first the nude lip would be too bland, it really pulled everything together while allowing the eyeliner and mascara to be the focal point (as they should be).

This post features products that were provided as press samples, however all opinions and observations are my own and not influenced by the brand or its PR team. This post contains affiliate links.