Chanel Rouge Allure Lipstick

Hands down my favorite lipstick! Chanel’s super sexy packaging really puts this lipstick over the top. You press the bottom of the gold container to release the lipstick. This new design ensures that the lipstick won’t get squished in its top. When you roll up the color, Chanel is printed into its side- how fabulously chic! The lipstick comes in 44 shades, but in my opinion the reds are by far the best. I bought the lipstick in 14 Passion, which is a real fire engine red, and 18 Sexy, which is more of a berry red. It’s incredibly satiny when you apply it due to the combination of shea butter and canola oil that make up the base. And the pigment is fantastic! It’s a great lipstick that I highly recommend and its packaging is so decadent you can’t help but feel beautiful as you apply it.

A side note: I visited the Chanel Le Rouge site. Can you believe it?
The lipstick had its own site independent of the normal Chanel site, but not only that, it also had its
own flash intro and short film! The flash intro was so over the top! It was very 2001: A Space Odyssey, the music, the shot progression, it was hilarious! Then you get an introduction to the short film, which apparently was inspired by legendary French filmmaker Jean Luc Godard’s Les Mepris, which starred Brigitte Bardot. Can we get more pretentious??

The film is very French New Wave-esque as we
watch a Bardot look-a-like roll around in a bed from
different angles with a faceless man who is clicking and twirling the lipstick in his fingers. She finally grabs the lipstick and asks, “Tell me, I need to know…do you like my lips?” The site has a voice over and goes into each element of the film -the actress, the sound of the click the lipstick makes – not joking, they actually included that, the music and the shoot. But my favorite
part was when they got to the main actress, and how she was supposed to be the incarnation of the lipstick. I know Chanel was trying to make the lipstick a memorable experience, but really, isn’t this pushing it a bit? Do we need to invoke Godard to sell a lipstick? Using a film movement to denote sophistication isn’t exactly the route I would have chosen to advertise a lipstick, especially when most of the potential consumers wouldn’t even really understand that reference. The Rouge Allure lipsticks sell themselves, they are great products! It just seems like over kill to me.