This season Chanel has released a limited selection of lip colors for the holiday collection. I ordered Rouge Allure Radieuse #217 a cool pink cream ($34, limited-edition) sight unseen. Although I usually find most Chanel lip colors naturally flattering and easy to work with, Radieuse proved to be one of the few I’ve purchased from the line that does not work so well for me. Radieuse is absolutely gorgeous in the tube and swatched on the arm it’s quite lovely. On my pigmented lips and olive skin it turns very powdery-looking and blue. There is a sharp contrast between my natural lip tone and the slight transparent quality of the lipstick which results in a darkish looking ring around the edges. The quality and texture is still quite good like most Chanel lipsticks. Although I do try to go outside my comfort zone with makeup, I found Radieuse just didn’t work for me. It’s a bit too too pale and has too much blue. Even my husband commented that he was not a fan of this color on me.
Here it is swatched:
To fix this one I blended a heavy layer of Chanel Nude Lipliner and Armani Gloss d’Armani in 109.
I think this might be the palest cream pink lipstick I own. I pulled a few to compare: Burberry English Rose Lip Cover (discontinued), Pink Heather Lip Mist (reviewed here) and Armani Rouge Ecstasy #103 (reviewed here).
If you can pull off pale baby pinks (I usually cannot unless there is some nude peach or brown or rose mixed in) you will like this one. Those with olive medium skin (like me) or darker may find this one a bit too pale. If it had shimmer mixed in I probably could pull this one off a bit easier. You’re mileage may vary with this color. I’d love to hear your thoughts if you’ve tried this shade. Perhaps I’m being too picky with this one – but I will be playing more with the color to see if I can grow to like it more.
Chanel Rouge Allure Radieuse is available at Chanel counters now. Online at Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Saks and Chanel.com.
