Chanel cosmetics had never intrigued me, something so fine and classy seemed so out of reach. Thinking back I can't remember any of Chanel's past collections, except for the impossible to get LE contouring blush called Notorious. Then came the new creative makeup director Lucia Pica and the eyeshadow quad with only matte browns and a red. It was a stunner. I didn't end up purchasing the quad, but I was mesmerized with the red eyeshadow and suddenly Chanel was on my radar. You can see my recreation of Chanel's le Rouge in this post. When the promo pictures for the Chanel Coco Code Blush Harmony were released I fell in hard love and was ready to take the plunge.
Coco Code Blush Harmony
To my knowledge the Spring 2017 collection reinterprets and celebrates Chanel's iconic beauty and colors. Quoting Lucia Pica: "Red, black, gold, white, beige: these are 'the secret codes' of Chanel beauty". Indeed, all of these colors are featured in Coco Code blush (except black just for the packaging), contrasted cleverly in promo images next to Rubik's cube and crossword puzzles. The blush is made in France and comes with a velvet pouch and a mini natural hair brush. There's a massive 11g/~0,38oz of product for 57€/$70.
Performance
This blush is excellent. The powder is smooth, not "buttery", but finely milled with a good balance of firmness and softness. I have used the blush several times and the embossing is not yet ruined. What I've swatched the regular Chanel blushes, the Coco Code Blush Harmony doesn't feel as hard. The pigmentation is medium-buildable and the product is easy to pick up and blend. The blush wears good 8 hours on my skin.
What I love the most about this blush is you're able to customise the finish by swirling the brush focusing on beige-gold-red or any other combination you like. You won't get a 4-in-one product as the squares are too small to use individually with larger brushes like a bronzer brush, but you can adjust the amount of red, beige or shimmer in your blush. I find the highlight shade easy to pick up separately with a candle shaped highlighter such as Hakuhodo B 5521 or a large eyeshadow brush. To decrease the amount of shimmer I mix all shades but white equally for a beautiful summery blush. On me it's a red flush with coral and golden undertones while the white works beautifully as a shimmery highlighter.
Swatches
'White' is a pinky champagne with silver flecks of shimmer, beautiful highlighter shade
'Beige' is a red based matte bronze
'Gold' is a patinated yellow gold with golden microshimmer
'Red' is a matte fire engine red
All four mixed is a warm red coral shade with flecks of shimmer
Make up of the day
ADDICTION tinted moisturizer on the top of Rouge Bunny Rouge Aqua Primer. Brows RBR long-lasting brow liner in Antimony (review here). I wear a mix of RBR mattes with Surratt's Bien Cuit eyeshadow on my lids. The blush is obviously Coco Code: I mixed 3 deeper shades as my blush and added the white a cheek bone highlight. Lipstick is SUQQU Extra Glow Lipstick in 07 Syunake. Mascara Heroine Make Long&Curl (film type), which btw is also excellent and wears during working out without smudging.
Overall thoughts
I know this blush is quite an investment piece at one go, but if the colors speak to you I can warmly recommend Coco Code Blush Harmony. I saw it's still available online and on the Finnish Chanel counters. I think you get your money's worth in both quality and 11 grams/0.38oz of product (less than ~0.2 grams more expensive than Tarte for example). You can nicely adjust the amount of each shade to customize your blush and get a beautiful highlighter shade as well. I think for deeper skin tones the gold would also work as a subtle highlighter on its own or mixed with the white.
How do you like the blush, would you spend the $$$ at one go? I'm also curious to hear what are your thoughts on reviewing limited edition items? Would you still read the posts although the product was no longer available?