Chantecaille Launch in Harvey Nichols, Manchester

Welcome to Manchester, Chantecaille! After taking the USA and now the UK by storm, the premium skincare, makeup and beauty line Chantecaille has just landed in Harvey Nichols Manchester. With a new counter as part of Harvey Nichols Manchester Beauty department on the ground floor just launching this August, I was invited down to meet Chantecaille’s Global Makeup Artist, Fernando Cadavid, to discover more about the brand.

Being welcomed to a private corner of Harvey Nichols in Manchester, I was greeted with a glass of champagne and sat down for an intimate chat with Global Makeup Artist, Fernando Cadavid. As head MUA for the brand, Fernando was super passionate about the story of Chantecaille and as well as being able to demo any products and share his favourites with us, was keen to tell us the story of the brand.

In short, Chantecaille is 20 years old and is still a family owned business, created by Sylvie Chantecaille, the ex-flat mate of fashion designer Dianne Von Furstenberg. Passionate about botanicals and custom blending foundations, Sylvie start off working in cosmetics with Estee Lauder before moving on to create her own line where she could be truly free to include the natural and botanical ingredients she wanted to.

Chantecaille’s products are not only botanical based, they are also good for the skin – beauty that is a hybrid between skincare and makeup, with even the foundation including ingredients that are healing to the skin. Key ingredients that Sylvie favours include aloe, arnica, seaweed, jasmine, geranium and much more, with no animal products created of animal derived ingredients and all being cruelty free.

As well as being cruelty free, Chantecaille takes ethical beauty one step further as Sylvie has always been passionate about giving back to the plenty. Therefore, every different colour collection that comes out is assigned to a different global cause that some of the profits go to. Past causes include donating profits to saving the coral reefs, turtles and glaciers. Their Autumn range of “Cause-metics” is based on the gentle giants of the elephants, helping to preserve their natural environment and protected the endangered species.

Of course, the beauty products themselves that Chantecaille create are as beautiful as you would expect from a brand so passionate about the environment. MUA Fernando was previously personal makeup artist to Jennifer Anniston and Reese Witherspoon after taking a turn from architecture, where Anniston introduced him to her favourite skincare brand Chantecaille – and the rest they say is history.