Modiface – Augmented Reality in the Beauty Industry

Augmented reality beauty is revolutionizing the cosmetics industry and the way consumers shop for products. L’Oreal announced today (March 16, 2018) that it has acquired Modiface, a company that’s had a hand in the creation of many custom augmented reality beauty apps, including those from Sephora and Estée Lauder. Modiface allows users visualize makeup and hairstyles on themselves. The partnership makes sense in that Modiface has already worked with L’Oreal multiple times, including on the launch of its Style My Hair mobile app, which lets users try on different hairstyles. For that app, Modiface manually annotated 22,000 facial images to create the experience.

AR has become increasing popular in the beauty industry. Numerous brands have launched AR tools and it can be predicted that there will be an increasing number of apps that come in handy when smart mirrors eventually become a thing. L’Oreal has launched multiple gadgets such as the UV nail sensor at CES this year. A recent Intage study, commissioned by Perfect Corp.,

found that users of the augmented reality beauty app are 1.6 times more likely to purchase cosmetic products compared to females who do not use the app and are 2.7 times to spend more money on beauty products than females who do not use the app.

Consumers want the opportunity to test out products virtually before making the decision to purchase. The growing presence of AR in the beauty industry suggests that in order to stay competitive, beauty brands must stay on top of technological advancements.