The camellia at the heart of Chanel beauty

The camellia at the heart of Chanel beauty

The camellia is one of Chanel’s iconic elements. This flower, which blooms mainly in winter, seduced Gabrielle Chanel with its graphic petals and beautiful symmetry. It is found in all the brand’s areas of expertise: beauty, fashion, watchmaking and jewellery. This is our chance to take a look at the subject in three chapters. Let’s start with beauty. Isabelle Cerboneschi, Gaujacq

Some places are enchanting and no doubt enchanted. The Camellia Farm in Gaujacq, in south-west France, is one of them. The 70 hectares of land between the hills of Béarn and the banks of the Adour river are home to camellias of every colour. These flowers undergo alchemical transformations to become a source of beauty.

The camellia farm at Gaujacq is part of a project initiated by Chanel in 1998: to cultivate this flower in an open-air laboratory, in order to discover its virtues and incorporate them into its skincare products. This programme was initiated in collaboration with Jean Thoby, international camellia expert, who has been cultivating a botanical conservatory garden in this small village in the Landes region for decades.

A conservatory garden with over 2,000 varieties of camellia

Everyone knows the white camellia, but its purity and beauty cannot summarise it. There is an immense variety of camellias – pinks, reds, purples, bicolours – and to appreciate the richness of their chromatic expression, you need to take a stroll through the alleys of the botanical conservatory garden at Gaujacq, which represents a magnificent sample of the finest this flower has to offer.

Located on the edge of the Château de Gaujacq and just a few kilometres from Chanel’s camellia farm, the garden is home to some of the rarest horticultural varieties in an area of almost 5 hectares. There are no fewer than 2,000 species of camellia among the 4,600 in existence, gleaned over time from all over the world by a family of nursery gardeners and collectors who have been growing plants for five generations. The conservatory at Gaujacq has been under the management of their descendant, Jean Thoby, an international camellia expert, since 1986. The garden is a kind of open-air botanical library, where you can consult not books, but camellias in all their glory. Created by Jean Thoby in 1986, it has been open to the public since 1993.

The story of the camellia and Chanel goes back to 1913, when Gabrielle Chanel first pinned a white camellia to her belt. The refined design of the flower seduced the emerging couturier, who opened a boutique in Deauville that same year. The camellia was first used as an accessory before being included in beauty elixirs.

A flower from Asia

In 1998, Chanel began working with international camellia expert Jean Thoby. The south-western air suits this plant, originally from Asia, which arrived in France via the tea route in the 17th century. ‘Camellias were introduced to Europe, in Norway, around 1720-1730,’ explains Jean Thoby. ‘Camellia Japonica was introduced to Great Britain between 1735-38 and in France, the first crops were grown between 1790 and 1810. There is evidence that Portuguese sailors brought them back from their voyages in the 16th century, but the flower was little known because they used it as a garden ornament’.

You need to have walked the paths of the conservatory in March, on a rainy day, to appreciate the beauty of this flower with its many virtues. But you have to earn your discovery: to face the downpour, we were lent an umbrella and a pair of Chanel rubber boots. The bright colours of the camellia stand out best on a grey sky. This flower has the elegance to bloom in winter, while all the others at least wait for spring.

As you stroll along, you’ll come across many different varieties: red, purple, bicoloured and fuchsia camellias, flowers with abundant petals while others are more reserved. Some are even several metres high. You’ll come across a Camellia reticulata, an endangered pink and white version, and a Camellia sinensis, the plant from which tea originated, which blooms from September to January. As the tour progresses, we learn that a camellia can live for more than 1,000 years. ‘Only if it is in a favourable environment, as if it were in a forest on the other side of the world from where it comes from, with large, medium-sized and small trees that will be its companions,’ points out Jean Thoby.

When Jean Thoby was asked to explain the variety of colours found in camellias, the answer was not long in coming. ‘A wild plant adapts to the climatic conditions it finds itself in. By observing its shape and colour, we should be able to understand where to place it in the garden. Silver-grey foliage, for example, indicates a plant that has adapted to a hot, dry climate, in full sun and with little water. Very dark purple foliage indicates adaptation to a full sun, humid climate. Many banana plants have red veins, for example. Plants with variegated colours have adapted to a lack of light compared to the original plant. The colour depends on the chemistry of the soil, the adaptation to an environment and which insect the plant needs to attract’. There is no link between colour and fragrance, however.

Most camellias flower in winter,’ continues the expert, ’but some bloom from May to October. It’s a very resilient plant, a force of nature: neither water nor cold can harm its petals’. Amongst all these plants, Jean Thoby unveils two of the mother plants that were ordered by Gabrielle Chanel over a century ago. These were the starting point for Chanel’s cultivation at the Ferme aux Camélias, just a few kilometres from this enchanting garden.

La Ferme aux Camélias, an open-air research laboratory

It is here that Chanel has chosen to grow camellias according to the principles of agroecology and agroforestry. The farm, which covers 70 hectares, allows the House to carry out scientific research in a phyto-analysis laboratory located in one of the buildings.

‘In 1998, we began working with Chanel Research to carry out experiments, take samples and plant trees,’ explains Jean Thoby. ‘Following numerous exchanges with the phytochemistry laboratory, we succeeded in growing the first Camellia japonica ‘Alba Plena’ in 2009. Without this project, this white camellia, which is now grown only in Gaujacq, could have disappeared’.

The farming practices used throughout the farm preserve the natural ecosystem and reduce pressure on the environment to a minimum. ‘At the Farm, 2,700 Camellia japonica “Alba Plena” plants and more than 10,000 “Camelia oleifera” plants are grown in the open ground, using environmentally-friendly farming practices, without any chemical inputs,’ explains Philippe Grandry, Chanel’s farm manager. ‘An experimental agroecological and agroforestry crop has been set up. The aim is to enrich the soil, to strengthen the ecosystem between the plant, the soil and the water, while increasing the plants’ resistance to disease. Everything here is natural, in harmony with nature. We work with it, not against it’,

The same goes for the harvest, which is entirely traditional. The flowers grown on the Ferme aux Camélias plots are picked by hand, well after the morning dew, with a twisting gesture to detach them from the stem. On average, each plant bears between 800 and 1000 flowers. They are carefully placed in a basket, then weighed and frozen before being sent to Chanel’s advanced research laboratory in Pantin. This is where the various raw materials used in the formulas for Chanel’s cosmetics, from the No1 range to the Hydra Beauty line, are extracted. Thanks to this project, Chanel can guarantee the conditions under which its precious camellias are produced.

But before they end up in a cosmetic formula, the flowers go through a crucial stage: the phyto-analysis laboratory, located at the heart of the farm. This is where the different varieties are analysed to discover new molecules that will enrich Chanel’s cosmetics lines. Because it is located as close as possible to the crops, the time between harvesting and study and the environmental impact are reduced. By studying the life cycles of plants, their development over the course of the year and seasonality, the laboratory is committed to finding the best compromise between respecting their physiology and the time when their concentration of molecules of interest is at its highest.

A laboratory run by a treasure hunter

The Gaujacq laboratory is run by Nicola Fuzzati, Director of Innovation and Development for Cosmetic Ingredients at Chanel. This scientist is a treasure hunter. A specialist in phytochemistry, he travels the world in search of the most interesting plants in order to analyse them and extract the most effective natural active ingredients. ‘We’re as close as possible to the plants,’ Nicola Fuzzati points out. ‘The active ingredients developed here will be produced in-house in the Chanel laboratories in Pantin or with partners’.

For the phytochemist, ‘each variety of camellia carries a molecule that the other does not. The red colour, for example, is linked to antioxidants’. To discover the virtues of a camellia, chemists analyse its molecules using a number of techniques, including chromatography. ‘For example, the red Camellia Japonica Mathotiana rubra is very rich in saponin. If we want a product that foams, we work with this flower. The colour of red camellias comes from anthocyanins (natural red or blue colourants), which act on the fragility of capillaries and are used in pharmaceuticals. Black camellia has a high concentration of anthocyanins. If I want a product to reduce dark circles and promote circulation, I’ll use black camellia. The yellow colour has no antocyans but flavonoids, which are antioxidants. Camellia japonica ‘Alba Plena’ is rich in polyphenols with antioxidant and moisturising properties, which are used in the Hydra Beauty range. And red camellia is rich in protocatechic acid, which has antioxidant and anti-ageing properties, which we use in the No 1 range. We use the molecules that interest us depending on the product,’ explains Nicola Fuzzati.

The scientist has no intention of stopping there. ‘When you open the fruit of the camellia, you find seeds. If you remove the kernel and press it, you get camellia oil, which has been used for centuries in Asia. In a circular economy approach, the entire camellia is used at Chanel: ‘We don’t throw away the Camelia oleifera shells, but use them in the caps of No 1 cream,’ stresses the scientist. ‘As well as its microbiome. From the leaves of camellias, we can isolate a yeast that we ferment to obtain an ingredient that protects the skin barrier. It’s so powerful that it’s used in many Chanel products, including the Sublimage line,’ explains Nicola Fuzzati.

‘Camellias have the characteristic of not having a senescence programme,’ emphasises Jean Thoby. ‘Genetically, they are not programmed to die. So the more time passes, the stronger and more beautiful the plant becomes’. It’s a characteristic that has fascinated the Chanel beauty teams and opened up a whole host of possibilities.