The cosmetics market remains as lucrative as ever, if the latest estimates are anything to go by. It’s anticipated to be worth $806 billion by 2023, driven in part by spending on AI in retail, which alone is expected to top $7.3 billion by 2022 thanks to blossoming tech like computer vision.
L’Oréal has its finger on the pulse. Following on the heels of My Skin Track pH, a strip co-developed with skincare brand La Roche-Posay that can measure skin acid on the fly, it today debuted the Perso, an AI-powered system that’s designed to deliver personalized skincare and cosmetic formulas.
The Perso, which measures 6.5 inches tall and weighs just over a pound, features an automatic mechanism that dispenses portioned doses of product at its top. It adjusts for morning and evening application, and the Perso boasts a detachable mirrored top that lets users take a single or larger dose on the go.
Customers first use a companion app to snap a picture of their skin with their smartphone, which L’Oréal’s ModiFace technology analyzes to identify deep wrinkles, fine lines, dark spots, and pore visibility. Then, leveraging geolocation data supplied by BreezoMeter, the air quality service that aims to reduce exposure to air pollution and high pollen, the Perso assesses location environmental conditions that might influence skin, including weather, temperature, pollen, UV index, and humidity.
Lastly, users enter their personal skincare concerns into the Perso app, including pigmentation, pore size, radiance, and dullness. They’re also afforded control over texture and hydration level to further customize their formula of moisturizer, serum, and under-eye cream.
According to L’Oréal, Perso’s motorized hardware — the bulk of which is concentrated in the top of the device — moves and compresses formula from cartridges, which are inserted at the base and pushed upward toward the dispensing tray. Cartridges — which are NFC-tagged — can be reordered through the mobile app, and the company says that in the future, the Perso will let customers design lipstick shades courtesy a forthcoming color-matching feature.
“Building on our deep scientific heritage and leadership in innovation, L’Oréal is once again leveraging advanced technology to create smart beauty products and services that answer the needs of our consumers and offer them near-limitless personalization and precision,” L’Oréal deputy CEO Nicolas Hieronimus said. “We are committed to making L’Oréal the leader in beauty tech — and Perso is the next step in that exciting journey.”
L’Oréal is no stranger to AI and machine learning cosmetic applications at this point. In June, tapping ModiFace’s augmented reality platform, it partnered with Amazon to let shoppers on mobile test out different shades of lipstick on live pics and videos of themselves. That rollout came a year after L’Oréal teamed up with Facebook to let the network’s users try on virtual makeup samples through the Facebook app.
Prior to L’Oréal’s acquisition of ModiFace in 2018, the Toronto-based team collaborated with L’Oréal on the launch of its Style My Hair mobile app, which lets users preview different hairstyles, and with retail cosmetics chain Mac on in-store electronic makeup mirrors and Benefit Cosmetics on an eyebrow try-on tool. ModiFace employs roughly 70 engineers, researchers, and scientists who have collectively submitted more than 200 scientific publications and registered over 30 patents.
Author: Kyle Wiggers
Source: Venturebeat
