Is AR Makeup the Future of the Beauty Industry?

By: Nora Martinez

The beauty industry is one of the great engines of the economy. However, the arrival of the COVID-19 has supposed a serious setback. Due to the health safety measures newly incorporated into our lives, the makeup industry can’t stay the way it was before.

Demonstrating makeup products in a store without sterilizing the product? Trying a lipstick shade on your hand? Those common acts repeated over and over in every beauty store are unthinkable today.

The brands dedicated to this field are undergoing a profound transformation to adapt to the new normal. With the pandemic emphasizing a need for change, could facial recognition technology be the solution to the beauty industry’s needs?

Facial recognition in makeup is nothing new. Virtual makeup was already making its way into the market right before the strike of the global sanitary crisis. Brands like MAC have been using this system, powered by Modiface, since 2017. Others, like Sephora, have already incorporated these kinds of AR effects into their shopping apps. Here’s a video demonstration that L’Oreal posted back in 2014.

They work in a similar way to the AR filters we’ve gotten used to thanks to Instagram stories or Snapchat. AR makeup allows the customer to know how a product would look on themselves by digitally applying the product color to the customer’s skin, lips, or eyes.

But, if this way of trying on beauty products didn’t get integrated into our lives before, why would it now?

Since most people have become aware of the dangers of not keeping enough sanitary caution, it is to be expected that makeup consumers will be reluctant to try a lipstick on knowing the chance that someone else might have tried it on their lips before. Besides, AR makeup can make the shopping experience faster and adjust the right tone to your skin without the chore of having to wipe off a shade to try another one.

Times have changed, and perhaps the makeup shopping experience changes along.