This blog post is apart of Design Blogger Competition organized by CGTrader. Click to find out more.
The beauty industry
is at its peak, with more freelance MUAs than ever before, with YouTube and
Instagram being a full-time career for some makeup artists – it’s truly amazing
in comparison to what it used to be. With that however, comes competition
between brands to step up their formulas and become innovative with new
releases. So, what is the future of makeup? Well, I think it has a lot to do
with combining technology, science and cosmetics, to help women (and equally
men) who may struggle with makeup or simply want to save time. Soon, nobody
will spend hours applying their foundation and filling in their eyebrows, or
swatching shades on their arms at the makeup counters to find that perfect
match. Instead, almost the same way as labour saving devices, brands will create
‘shortcuts’ to help us look and feel beautiful even quicker! Now it might sound
crazy initially, but let me give you a few examples that show this is the
direction we are heading in.
First I want to speak about the world of custom foundations.
The first ‘custom foundation’ that I actually stumbled across was Lancome’s Le
Teint Particulier. For this, you create a sort of profile/record of your skin
type e.g. is it dry, oily or combination. Then, you can actually choose the
level of coverage that you want your foundation to be (light, medium or full).
I think this is a really good idea as for example, brands such as Maybelline
have a range of skin tones that they cater to in their ‘Fit Me’ line (which is
actually one of my personal favourites), but the level of coverage isn’t
adjustable. This means that someone who likes a particularly full coverage
foundation has to settle for whatever product caters to their skin tone, so I
think Lancome have done a good job at tackling this.
Next, you select
three areas on your skin that will be scanned by a small handheld device to
match your skin tone. It can detect up to 20000 shades which is insane!!! It
can also help you identify your undertone which can be useful to know in
general – I really struggled to find foundations that match me until I
discovered I have a warm undertone. This means that Lancome are also providing
you with information you can essentially take away and apply to what you look
for in general products beyond that point. The pigments of the foundation are
mixed up before your eyes, before being poured into a personalised bottle with
your name and a serial number on it, so you can easily have the foundation
remade without going through the entire process again. The price point is 80
USD which is reaaaally pricey for a foundation, BUT it does look like a really
interesting and pioneering process.
So when I thought it
couldn’t get much better than this, I discovered some companies have taken this
idea a step forward and through a similar process to the above, discovered the
way to find the perfect foundation match through an app.
The ‘Matchco’ app
allows you to scan your face, similar to the process outlined above, just using
your phone camera instead. You first calibrate your phone camera against some
white paper, and then scan other areas of your skin as requested. The foundation
is 49 USD which is still pricey but nonetheless a cheaper alternative to the
Lancome option… However, you don’t get the option to create a profile for your
skin, and no power over the level of coverage which is the catch in the
reduction of price. From researching, the Matchco foundation actually appears
to be a light coverage formula, which makes $49 seem even more steep as this
usually isn’t preference over a BB cream.
So although it’s not
the most common thing as of right now, I genuinely think custom foundations are
in the near future of cosmetics. Consumers want more choice and brands need to
keep up, point blank. No7 provides a cheaper, UK alternative for Matchco this
if anyone UK based is interested in trying something like this out. Watch this
space.
Spray on, stick on
and press on makeup is slowly creeping its way into the cosmetic industry. You
can now purchase spray on primers from popular brands such as smashbox, or even
buy eyeliner and eyebrow stamps. On that note, there is definitely room for
improvement when it comes to some of these ‘innovative’ products. From various
Youtube videos and posts I’ve seen about these types of products overall, the
general consensus seems to be that they’re a good idea, but they don’t quite
work just yet. Just for an example, a press on eyeliner sounds like a good idea
for those who really struggle with creating a perfect wing, but it’s not
necessarily helpful if it’s then difficult to press that on your eye and angle
it correctly, connect it to the rest of the eyeliner… you see where I’m going
here. It’s fixing one problem by creating another. I’ve even seen videos of
peel off eyeshadows and stamp on eyebrows too, and it’s not so easy to take a
‘one size fits all’ approach to anything, makeup in particular – eyebrows in
particular.
It’s not all bad
though. This is something that excites me a lot more than it should - spray on
nail polish. Every time I paint my nails it is just a serious fail, I always always
ALWAYS smudge my nails, have some nails looking patchy and whatever else you
can think of. It’s just an overall mess. So when I heard about this it was a
product that actually really appealed to me. Nails inc. London have a product
called Paint Can, which is basically involves you spraying a colour on your
nails from a can that looks like a can of spray paint, leaving it to dry for no
more than a few minutes (which sounds more appealing than an hour to me), and
then washing your hands with warm, soapy water to remove the excess colour from
your fingers. I think the amount of time this could save is insane, for me in
particular and it blows my mind this isn’t as popular as I think it deserves to
be yet. That being said, I do think Paint Can will become mainstream in the
future and is so creative when it comes to design and beauty.
In the future, I
really hope brands work on these designs because they truly are innovative,
maybe introducing various colours, shapes and sizes, as well as improving the
way these mechanisms work. Eyeshadow stencils and spray on primers have proved
to be largely successful, so it’s a step in the right direction. Baby steps!
So throughout the few
products and processes I’ve outlined in this post, I hope I have opened some
peoples eyes to the fact that the future of design is truly integrated into
areas that some may not have even considered, such as cosmetics. I do think some
of these ideas are insanely creative and I would love to see them become more
mainstream as I think they would be beneficial to many. But with that being said,
it’s clear that some products, particularly the ‘press ons’, have a few more
stairs to climb before they will be recognised as truly effective products.
I have really enjoyed
sharing my thoughts with you on this topic today and I think it’s interesting
to look into makeup beyond just simple product reviews and demos. Thank you so
much for reading this post! Check out my YouTube channel by clicking the link here and be sure to subscribe! Also, you can see some detailed makeup and
product shots often by following my Instagram account @MyleeneBlogs or click here. Until Next Time!
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