Chanel Fall introduces two new Le Crayon Levres/ Crayon Contour des Levres Precision/ Precision Lip Definer pencils in Coralline (#46) and Rose Cuivre (#47) ($29 each). Both are welcome additions to the line.
To be honest, I’m not a good person to compare them to other brands because I’ve only used Chanel lip pencils (after some disappointing results with a few less expensive brands). Also, I do not wear lip pencils very often–I lack the patience and never really got into the habit of using them. Nonetheless, I’m sure that I’ll get good use out of both Coralline and Rose Cuivre and here’s why.
Generally, Chanel lip pencils are high quality and long lasting. They don’t glide on, but they don’t pull very much either. With even if you aren’t very talented with lip pencils (I’m not), they apply evenly.
My lips are rather pigmented toward red-mauve. Putting on a semi-sheer coral or peach lip color never applies true to the tube color, and often times not even close. I need a lip pencil to wear those shades, unless the lipstick is very opaque. There really are not a large number of good, true coral lip pencils on the market. Coralline fills that gap beautifully. If you are looking for a pencil to coordinate with peach or coral lipsticks or glosses, get Coralline.
Like all Le Crayon Levres pencils, Coralline comes with a built-in brush for blending and a sharpener.
Coralline covers the pigmentation in my lips, and provides a soft coral base. Only then does the red-mauve in my lips stop “fighting” the peachy-coral of the gloss or lipstick.
Rose Cuivre (which translates to “copper rose”) is a pretty warm deep red. It can be worn under any deep red lipstick, such as Chanel Rouge Coco Etole, or any other. It’s actually beautiful alone for a deep matte lip.
This color is so far inside my personal comfort zone that I’m not certain that I can review it objectively. Even though I need Coralline in my beauty stash, I know that I’ll use Rose Cuivre much more. It’s a perfect fall pencil for most–but a year-round pencil for me.
Here’s a series of swatches with Chanel Rouge Coco Etole, Chanel Rose Cuivre lipliner pencil, Chanel Coralline lipliner pencil and Chanel Rouge Coco Plumentis, all from the Fall 2011 collection. Just for comparison, I then swatched Chanel Rouge Coco in Monte Carlo so that you can see a coral comparison (Monte Carlo is more red than Coralline, which is more peach). Then, just for color comparison, I swatched my Chanel lip pencil in Natural, so that you can judge these swatches compared to a neutral tone.
One more, same setup:
Bottom line: Yes for Coralline for practicality; yes for Rose Cuivre just because it’s so very lovely.
