ANDra the 1924when Gabrielle Chanel founded the Société des Parfums Chanel and invests in a factory laboratory in Pantin, about six kilometers from Paris. A place where past, present and above all future meet. Today like yesterday. We’ve been there.
Visiting the Chanel laboratories, discovering new skincare products
The impression you get when visiting it is that this Center for Innovation, Research and Development is the perfect synthesis between craftsmanship and cutting-edge technology. An idea of global beauty that takes advantage of the expertise of various disciplines: biology, biochemistry, epidemiology, sociology and others.
Overcoming challenges, for a maison that has always kept up with the times, thus becomes a fundamental point on which all the research carried out in Pantin is based. One of the key points is undoubtedly the study of how to intervene on the mechanisms linked to aging.
An impactful view of the Chanel Innovation, Research and Development Center in Pantin, a few kilometers from Paris, where all the brand’s cosmetic creations are born (photo by Sandro Campardo).
Senescence: studies of the “science of beauty” Chanel
What do we really mean by talking about senescence? I discovered it precisely through the experience I had in the laboratories. Senescence is the phenomenon of cellular aging. It is known that each cell in the human body divides approximately fifty times before being eliminated, a natural process: over time, old cells give way to young ones.
However, some “rebel” and stop dividing, lose energy, accumulating in the tissues. These “senescent” cells hinder the function of others and accelerate aging. To such an extent that, due to environmental causes or excessive stress, they can increase to represent fifty percent of the body’s cells!
At work in the Chanel laboratories
The result? wrinkles, discolouration, sagging skin. Also in this case it depends a lot on each person’s genetic heritage, but it is unfortunately clear that the more time passes, the more the process of senescence increases. Prevention and correction become fundamental and therefore effective and safe treatments are needed.
Today, skin senescence no longer has any mysteries. In fact, since 2012, Chanel Research has made use of two of the world’s leading experts in the field of cellular aging: the Professor Johannes Grillari and Professor Florian Gruberfrom the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna.
Chanel Sublimage La Crème
Many new discoveries and the publication of scientific articles, starting from development of a model to study skin senescence at both cellular and tissue level, which manifests itself in three phases: the start (cells stop dividing and age-related blemishes appear), propagation (cells send stress messengers which induce neighboring cells to also enter senescence, the signs of aging are more evident) and the last phase, the establishment (senescent cells accumulate, the traces of time passing are profound).
Exposome, this unknown
A fundamental stage of this research was reached in 2020, when Professor Grillari analyzed the impact of the so-called “exposome” (pollution, stress from sunlight) on skin senescence.
Chanel Sublimage L’Extrait de Crème
A six-year research and development program now led by Professor Gruber, who through revolutionary visualization technology has made it possible to identify markers of senescence in tissues, to evaluate the vitality of each epidermal cell and to measure the effectiveness of products on the skin. The various active ingredients identified have made it possible to eliminate the existing problem, giving life to new active cells.
Friendly nature
Chanel’s emblematic flower: the white camellia Alba Plena grown in southwestern France.
Chanel Sublimage L’Extrait de Nuit
The open-air laboratories are the other flagship of Chanel research for the identification of exclusive raw materials. Five laboratories in different climatic areas: in Gaujacq and the southern Alps in France, in Costa Rica, in Madagascar and in Bhutan. Here the plants from which the maison extracts its most important active ingredients are grown.
A work that combines science and nature with results that can be touched first-hand (and you can see it on your face!), an example above all line Sublimage. The heart of this cosmetic jewel is Madagascar vanilla, with its exclusive active ingredient, polyfractionated Vanilla Planifolia, which has a concentration of active molecules forty times higher than the original raw material. An extraordinary help to restore cellular communication promoting its renewal: the skin is regenerated.
Himalayan Swertia, super active contained in Chanel Extrait de Nuit
Himalayan Swertia extracthand-harvested every three years and then dried thanks to an exclusive extraction process, limits the spread of senescence and contributes to skin repair by eliminating aged fibroblasts. A combination that is capable of increasing global tissue repair by seventy-three percent. Once the visit to the Pantin Center is over, morale is decidedly higher: our skin is really in good hands!
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