In its mission to attract a digital audience, the cosmetics sector is making strides. Beauty brands cannot afford to ignore, as with any consumer sector, the rapid development of game-changing technologies that are revolutionizing the ways we absorb and interact with data 增肌減脂機. Brands are required to step up and not just change with the times, but describe them in a world of Virtual Reality, Holograms and 3d Printers. With online shoppers seeking the same immersive, user-oriented shopping experience they will get in the store, customer appetites are more complex and personal than ever before.

Ever wonder why those selfies from Instagram influencers look so perfect? Well its apps like Facetune and Snapchat that come to their aid. A response to this question? Augmented Reality. Users can tweak (read: completely change) their appearance in real-time with this new update before getting the selfie.

It’s only one way in which the worlds of technology and aesthetics have clashed at an accelerating rate over the past few years. The global cosmetics industry has been injected with the vigor of Silicon Valley, expected to hit $805bn by 2023. To add to this, the lockdown and safety issues regarding human interaction under COVID-19 have ensured that this kind of disruptive technology has become the norm. Innovations in artificial intelligence, virtual reality and smart instruments that are going to revolutionize our relationship with beauty and appearance are at the apex of these industries.

Think of genuinely revolutionary skincare systems, including Opte from Procter & Gamble, a portable inkjet (literally a skin printer) that corrects blemishes and dark spots flawlessly in colour. Or the customizable 3d sheet-mask printer by the Korean company Amorepacific. Or Perso from L’Oreal, which collects environmental data and skin diagnostics to combine cosmetics on-the-spot.

Fuelled by the tech boom of the wellness industry, such as fitness trackers and AI-therapy bots, first of all, beauty leans deeper into digital personalization sector. One such personalized haircare brand is FREEWILL, which makes use of Artificial Intelligence to create a unique formulation that caters to your specific hair care needs. It takes into considerations factors ranging from the climate around you to the chemical treatments your hair might have undergone. The best part of it, it does all this while being sulfate-free and affordable.

With the ongoing advancements in technology, Big data, now means that technology can create a customised loop of feedback between products and their efficiency. When before this personalization used to be focused on “relatively simplistic surveys, with no way to track whether any recommendations worked. “One such example is HiMirror, a vanity mirror capable of evaluating your skin’s changing conditions while maintaining a record of skincare and cosmetic efficacy. In other words, the routine of your skincare is about to level up.

To offer precise skincare readings and product recommendations, La Roche-Posay, Dermalogica and Shiseido are also promoting their face-mapping features. It reflects a larger change from a reactive approach to a proactive approach to personal care, where technology will help us establish a closer relationship with ourselves.

As potential outbreaks of COVID-19 could be a possibility, brands are locked in a battle to innovate. Advances in AR technology will play a key role in driving this. Stay-at-home orders, after all, mean that we have been empowered to prioritise touch-free shopping and digitally try on items. YouCam technology from MAC claims that it can “create photo-realistic simulations that can be tested on any skin tone and adapted to various textures, mattes, sheens, glosses and more than 200 lip or eye colour shades. “

No wonder, then, that the attempt by MAC has seen “a threefold rise in customer interest over the past eight weeks, ” The use of virtual lipstick try-on by Estee Lauder has increased significantly. That’s thousands of tries between testers with no residue left, meaning that practical AR has the potential to be a game-changer for colour cosmetics.

The democratisation of beauty has been widely embraced by social media, especially Instagram and Youtube. The power once attributed to European fashion houses is now in the hands of online communities, led by James Charles, Jeffree Star and Nikkie de Jager, among others. Beauty content generated over 169 billion views on Youtube in 2018. The effect is a highly active audience, who understands the difference between retinol and retinoids, fluent in small-print formulas.

The phenomenon of having to look more attractive online than in real life is at the intersection of this. But what if the very concept of beauty was expanded by our digital selves? Enter Ines Alpha, a prolific 3d makeup artist and philter maker whose work is very futuristic. There is also the possibility of this affecting how we see ourselves in real life, with the idea that 3d makeup will become as ubiquitous as the real thing.