Tech, beauty intersect in Silicon Valley

SAN FRANCISCO, California — The beauty industry has long relied on creating a sense of mystery, magic even, around its creams, powders and potions. But now it has something else up its sleeve: high technology.

French cosmetics giant L’Oreal has opened a “tech incubator” employing two dozen people in San Francisco and elsewhere seeking ways to use big data and algorithms to win the hearts and minds of customers.

It may involve analyzing large data sets to find the right color for nail polish, or patches that measure absorption of ultraviolet radiation — or using technology to spot emerging beauty trends ahead of the curve.

The French group is hoping that Silicon Valley’s talents can help it improve its products and connect better with customers.

Guive Balooch, who heads the San Francisco incubator, said he sees how these kinds of analytics and other technologies can help improve beauty products.

One of the innovations from the team has resulted in the L’Oreal Lancome brand developing an individualized makeup foundation, known as “Le Teint Particulier.”

This system, now used in some retail outlets, scans a person’s skin and uses an algorithm that designs a custom-blended product based on skin tone. The system was developed by California startup Sayuki, which L’Oreal bought in 2014.

L’Oreal’s team also created the Makeup Genius application which uses virtual reality to allow people to try various makeup schemes on their smartphone. It has been downloaded some 20 million times.

The cosmetics giant also worked with California Organovo for “bioprinting,” creating three-dimensional human tissue to test its cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, and with PCH Lime Lab, a San Francisco design and engineering firm on the patch that sticks to one’s skin and changes color with exposure to sun rays.

Hair tech

The L’Oreal team also hopes one day to have a Genius app on hair color, which could help another key product line, if it can overcome technical challenges.

“Hair color is very complex, because you have 100,000 fibers on average in your hair, on your head, and they’re all moving in different directions,” Balooch said.

L’Oreal wants to stay on top of trends, and the data analytics team can play an important role, says Balooch.

“We do know from anonymous data what colors people are trying all around the world, we know what products they’re trying, we know how long they’re using them before trying something else,” Balooch said.

Being aware of new trends is also critical for marketing efforts. L’Oreal is working with Google, with whom it has an online advertising deal, to help better understand fashion trends by studying search queries.

This could allow L’Oreal to place ads better based on keywords, according to its digital strategist Axel Adida.

Adida said it is important “to be on point with the latest fashion that comes up on the street.”

“The thing which is very cool when you work with Google, it’s a sort of beauty insight center,” he added.

“So the things that come up and that pop up as a novelty, the new fashion and beauty, a lot of it is being searched very early. You see little things moving in the trends — and you end up with something as big as smoky eyes.”

source: interaksyon.com

Tonight, I need your sweet Caresse

MANILA, Philippines - When I lie down at night, I don’t have discreet fantasies about Chris Hemsworth or Robert Downey Jr.—primarily because I don’t need to be halfway to Bedfordshire to do so. Instead, I dream of the perfect lipstick. I dream about breaking certain lipstick conventions, like the commonly acknowledged statement that if it’s a matte finish, it’s meant to dry your lips out a bit. (Or a ton.)

Recently, L’Oreal introduced the Tint Caresse, the brand’s first ever powder lipstick, which has been a serious game changer. Yup, take a minute, because I did say “powder.” That’s just the start of the many reasons why this product, so thoughtfully engineered from the outside in, deserves a spot in your makeup bag.

First of all, the Tint Caresse is packaged in a seemingly common pen-type cylinder, with a few key differences. The actual product is pressed down into a little chamber inside the cap. Similar to what a few Japanese brands have been doing with two-way brow products, the “pen” part has a sponge-tip applicator, with Tint Caresse’s being tulip shaped for extra definition. However, this product’s applicator is spring-loaded, allowing the it to retract into the cap with a small bit of force each time it’s closed, meaning you start each use with a perfectly measured amount of product. It’s a beauty geek’s dream come true.

The product itself is the fruit of technological innovation—a formula blending emollient oils, silky touch powder, and elastomeric silicon, among other things, to bring together a powder we’ve never seen before. Tint Caresse adheres like a lipstick should, sits lightly on lips like air, gives a matte finish without being in any way drying, and lasts until you need it to come off.

The color selection is also something to be commended, because with eight launching colors, it already runs the spectrum from red to pink to nude to peach to orchid to plum. But the really beautiful thing about this is that all the colors are rather sophisticated in tone, and I’m unsure if it’s because of the fact that it’s a powder, but it delivers a host of variety and boldness without ever being vulgar.

A reason for that may also be because it’s being marketed as a great tool for the gradient lip—the look of post-cherry popsicle consumption, with darker concentrated color in the center of the lip, blending outward. And yet, to leave it at that would be a truly grave mistake, because this is a serious, full-coverage product that works on its own. (Not-so pro tip: it’s an incredible treat with a sharp lip liner round the edges, because the product both blends in with and sets the defining liner at the same time.)

One tiny thing here, though, is that it claims to be transfer proof. I don’t find this to be a hundred percent true. I think the nature of the product being what it is, it’s built to adhere to skin, so it tends to kiss off minimally on say, the back of your hand. On a tissue or on other surfaces, though, it stands strong. So while you can rejoice at the prospect of eating a burger without leaving that dreaded lipstick ring around the bun, perhaps look in another direction for a more make out-friendly lip color. And at 500 pesos a pop for a seriously excellent product, I think we can afford to be a little less nitpicky.

The beauty market is oversaturated with so-called variations on the same old products, constantly throwing around the term “revolutionary” and “brand new.” In its midst, the Tint Caresse stands out as something that is not only seriously unique, but delivers on fronts where its predecessors failed to do so. (I’m looking at you, prune-esque inducing matte lipsticks of yesteryear.) It has not only managed to tick all the boxes of what you ever wanted in one product, but its managed to be that thing you didn’t even know you were dreaming of. Which, in terms of any product development, has every right to be called revolutionary.

So now that we’ve found powder lipstick, it’s inevitably on to the perfect mascara.

source: philstar.com