The Beauty Gypsy Review: Chantecaille Rose de Mai Face Oil
There are roses. And then there’s Rose de Mai. A flower so rare that it blooms for only three weeks a year, in Grasse, the flower capital of France. It needs the unique combination of the Mediterranean climate and the rich soil of the French Riviera to bloom.
And the entire year’s production of this 100-petalled gorgeous pink rose, which carries the notes of pale honey and green earth, is less than one day’s production of Bulgarian rose.
This makes Rose de Mai oil so rare and costly that I know of only one brand which uses it in high concentrations for skincare: Chantecaille.
Sylvie Chantecaille, the brand’s founder, is the high priestess of botanical beauty, creating products that are not only luxurious and high performing but also clean and sustainable.
And I am currently in love with the Chantecaille Rose de Mai Face Oil, which apparently contains 1,000 roses. Honestly, as a beauty editor you get pretty jaded with tall promises but this particular face oil is something special.
Rose de Mai has a super-high concentration of antioxidants… far more more than your generic varieties. It’s also anti-inflammatory and rich in a host of skin-friendly vitamins and fatty acids. This makes it superb at calming, purifying and reviving the skin, while also being nourishing and rejuvenating.
In the Chantecaille Rose de Mai Face Oil, this precious rose is also joined by Chilean tea bark, which brightens the skin, paracress for signs of premature ageing, and winged kelp to make the complexion appear more toned.
I started using it after spending a bit too much time in Positano’s tropical sun and my skin stayed irritation-free and continued to thrive despite the agonizing heat. The key is to use just a little, since it’s so potent.
I find it works best when I mix it with my moisturizer at night. It’s also great for prepping my skin before makeup for a beautiful glow.
And then there are days when I just take the tiniest drop in my hands and let the beautiful aromas calm me down, relax me, help me float into deep sleep.
Rating: 5/5 (which is rare in my book!)
Do you know of any other brand that uses good concentrations of Rose de Mai? Would love to explore.
Anubha Charan is the founder of The Beauty Gypsy and a beauty journalist with more than 25 years in the industry — as the former Beauty Director at Marie Claire, where she worked with the magazine's Paris headquarters, Managing Editor at Vogue, and Beauty Editor at Cosmopolitan. She trained in perfumery in Grasse, France, and spent six years reporting on beauty from Paris.
Her work has also appeared in Travel + Leisure, WebMD, and Architectural Digest, and she is the co-author of Paris Bath & Beauty, a book on French beauty rituals published by Simon & Schuster.
