While browsing my X feed recently, I encountered a viral post by the user @headnavy. The post announced that one of Rihanna’s brands, Fenty Beauty, had developed a filter designed to assist individuals in effortlessly finding the foundation shade that best matches their skin tone.
This innovation struck me as particularly ingenious, as I had not previously heard of such a tool and since we’re in the digital age of using AIs to complete or help with our everyday tasks, it was a brilliant, seamless idea.
How Does Fenty Beauty Incorporate AI?
Fenty Beauty has capitalized on AI to enhance and further make the shopping experience in the beauty industry easy.
Here are some of the ways it does that:
1. AI Skin Tone Analysis:
Fenty Beauty uses AI-powered technology from Perfect Corp’s YouCam Makeup. This tool adopts computer vision and machine learning to analyze photos of the user’s skin uploaded to the website. This tool identifies even the slight variations in skin color and undertones, providing a highly accurate match that has been touted on the internet.
2. Personalized Recommendations:
From analysing the skin, the AI will now correctly recommend the best foundation shades from Fenty Beauty’s extensive lineup. This recommendation ensures that customers get a product that will best complement their skin tone.
3. User-Friendly Interface:
Aside from the accurate shade finder that users have raved about, the user interface a.k.a The Virtual Shade Finder is designed to be easy to understand and use. The only thing customers have to do is to simply upload a photo or use their device’s native camera to capture their skin tone. The AI will then processes the image and give instant feedback/recommendations.
4. Inclusivity and Accuracy:
By now, it is no secret that Fenty Beauty and it’s sister brands are established with inclusivity in mind. Fenty Beauty’s AI tool is no different as it was built to cater to a diverse range of skin tones. It does this by using a comprehensive dataset to ensure accuracy across different skin tones and undertones.
Once your skin tone and undertone has been successfully determined, it can suggest complementary products such as: Concealers, Powders, Blushes and Bronzers, Highlighters and Lipsticks.
The most interesting part about this new beauty innovation is that several beauty brands have begun leveraging the power of AI technology to enhance their product offerings and provide personalized experiences for their customers.
The other notable brands doing this includes:
1. Neutrogena:
It’s Skin360 app uses AI to check skin conditions and recommend personalized skin care routines.
It does this by scanning your face with your smartphone camera. Afterwards, the AI tool evaluates over 100,000 skin pixels and 2,000 facial attributes, in comparison to a database of 10,000 images graded by dermatologists.
2. Olay:
Olay’s Skin Advisor AI tool uses AI to analyse skin age and provide personalised skincare advice to the user. It does this by using machine deep learning and computer vision technology to evaluate selfies uploaded to it. The Skin Advisor tool also checks for your “skin age” and identifies “problematic” areas that contribute to this age.
3. L’Oréal:
L’Oréal’s AI-powered technologies or tool includes the Shade Finder for foundation matching and the Skin Genius tool for customised and tailored skin care recommendations.
The Shade Finder technology uses AI analyse and compare the skin tone and undertone to find the best foundation for your skin in 10 seconds. The Skin Genius technology on the other hand offers personalized skincare recommendations by analyzing your skin’s condition and needs.
Like anything man-made, the accuracy of these AI tools can be influenced or hindered by several factors, some of which include:
1. Lighting Conditions: The accuracy of the shade match can be affected by the lighting when the selfie was photo is taken. Experts recommend using natural light for the best results.
2. Device Settings: The quality of the selfie camera and the settings on the customer’s device can hugely impact the accuracy of the AI tool accurately diagnosing or skin matching the customer’s skin problems or makeup needs.
3. Skin Undertones: These AI tools are designed to account for various undertones, but slight differences in undertones can oftentimes affect the results.
If you’re interested, you can check out the AI tool on the websites of the beauty brands mentioned.
