64 glamour.co.za
Envision a world
where your face
cream is tailor-
made for your
DNA, your hair
mask knows you
got highlights last
Thursday, and
your serum has
a better handle
on your likes and
your dislikes than
your partner.
Innovators from
the worlds of
tech and beauty
are dreaming
up these super
personalised
beauty products
right now. If half
of the predictions
pan out, the
next generation
of lipsticks and
hydrators will
be virtually
unrecognisable.
the
personal
touchWords by
ElizabEth SiEgEl
“You’ll get products for
your skin’s unique needs”
In the
next year...
... Sheet masks
will go high-tech
Yes, they make skin dewy
fast, but if you buy one
that’s not the best fit for
your face, they can also
cause serum to leak into
your eyes and get
uncomfortably close to
your mouth. A first-world
problem, but annoying
enough that Neutrogena
created 3D-printed sheet
masks, called Neutrogena
MaskiD, that are tailored to
your face shape.
“The same facial-
recognition technology
that lets you open your
iPhone by looking at your
screen also allows us to
scan and create a 3D model
of your face in our app,”
says Michael Southall,
global research and
development lead for
beauty tech and devices at
Johnson & Johnson. To
print the customised sheet
masks, he and his team
partnered with experts whospecialise in 3D-printing artificial joints. Maybe even more
exciting? The ingredients are also customised. “We can put
different ingredients on different facial zones – forehead,
cheeks, around the eyes,” says Michael. Neutrogena already
has an iPhone attachment, the Skin360 Skin Scanner Lens,
that uses sensors to measure moisture levels on various
parts of the face and imaging technology to track wrinkle
depth and pore size. Based on these readings, the new
MaskiD app will recommend ingredient combinations for
different facial zones (five ingredients, including hyaluronic
acid and vitamin C, will be available at launch). “The
possibilities are almost infinite,” says Michael.... Flawless foundation will be
just a blue LED device away
The Opté Precision Skin System looks like an old-school
handheld inventory scanner, but it’s one of the most
impressive things you’ll see. Instead of reading bar codes,
the device scans your face with blue light to identify age
spots and pimples, uses a facial-recognition algorithm to
determine each blemish’s size, shape and colour, and then
prints the perfect amount of foundation over them.
It is essentially a 3D-makeup printer: it’s got a mini inkjet
that squirts out droplets of foundation (each one finer
than a strand of hair) to cover spots until they’re hidden.
“It’s difficult to print makeup onto the face with any real
accuracy,” says Phill Dickens, a professor of manufacturing
technology. Printing foundation, which can blend into
surrounding skin, makes much more sense than printing
something that’s got to be precise, like eyeliner, onto your
face. The foundation (which Opté calls a Tone Perfecting
Serum) is infused with skin-brightening, anti-inflammatory
niacinamide to fade sun spots and pimples over time and
comes in three sheer shades (fair, medium and deep).In the next few years...
... DNA testing could be a standard
step in buying skincare
Just as a saliva sample can trace your ancestry, it could also
be used to predict how your skin will age based on an
evaluation of your genetics. As we get older or are exposed
to the sun, for example, certain genes flip on – “they triggerFEEL