AI bots and 3D-printed brows: L’Oréal ups its tech investment

This article is part of our Vogue Business Membership package. To enjoy unlimited access to Member-only reporting and insights, our NFT Tracker and TikTok Trend Tracker, weekly Technology and Sustainability Edits and exclusive event invitations, sign up for Membership here. L’Oréal’s new 3D Shu:brow is its most technologically advanced way to apply brow makeup yet. It uses AR facial recognition to map users’ perfect brow outline according to their face shape, and 3D-printed inkjets to “print” cosmetics directly onto the face. It’s a futuristic update to pencilling in your brows and an impressive feat for the beauty conglomerate, which has invested millions into consumer tech, research and advancements to its laboratories as well as into biotech start-ups via its corporate venture capital arm, Bold. But who is this technology actually for? “We want to be at any touchpoint where consumers are using beauty products,” says Guive Balooch, L’Oréal’s global managing director of augmented beauty and open innovation, speaking outside of L’Oréal’s booth at the Vivatech technology conference in Paris. “That might be in a hyper-luxury environment with just 100 points of sales like with Armani or YSL Beauté. Or, it might be 300 million people using Microsoft Teams with augmented reality,” he says, referencing the group’s recently unveiled collaboration between mass cosmetics brand Maybelline with Microsoft Teams for AR makeup filters users can wear during calls. The 3D brow device is the latest example of how L’Oréal is using technology to gain an advantage in the market, both behind the scenes and with customer-facing tools. Awards at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) for the likes of 3D Shu:brow have bolstered the public profile of its consumer tech, but stealthier spending in research and innovation (R&I) will turbocharge its development and widen its mass consumer offerings. Smaller start-ups such as Prose, Hims & Hers and Atolla have been gaining attention with tech-driven, personalised beauty products, levelling up consumer expectations from products and services. Meanwhile, ingredient-led companies, including The Ordinary, Olaplex and K18, have created retail environments that are led by scientific prowess more than ever before, with consumers increasingly seeking out particular ingredients or complexes, and putting results, not marketing, above all else. That means more pressure on incumbent companies to create products and solutions that meet these new demands. Experimenting with customer-facing technology can also put a company at risk: a class action lawsuit filed on 26 June accuses L’Oréal of mishandling a consumer’s biometric information via its makeup try-on technology. (L’Oréal did not respond to questions about the lawsuit prior to publication.) L’Oréal’s tech strategy is twofold, spanning both splashy tech innovations displayed at conferences and aiming to make headlines, as well as developing new ingredients and processes. New developments in biotech and artificial intelligence (AI) have driven its investments. L’Oréal’s main R&I lab in Aulnay, France, houses 1,000 employees working on new technologies for the group to use — now aided by co-bots and AI, says Balooch. Co-bots are collaborative robots designed to work with human operators to complete processes. The company declined to put a ‘price tag’ on the Aulnay campus, but says €1.1 billion was invested into R&I across the group in 2022, up from €914 million in 2018, and that it has more than 800 scientists dedicated to upstream research. “We’re modernising our approach in every avenue possible,” says Balooch. “We’re using artificial intelligence to help us formulate better, and to help us look for new molecules and ingredients,” he says, adding that constantly mounting consumer demand for higher-performance products is directly influencing their investment. New ingredients are helping to differentiate L’Oréal’s brands as having greater scientific pedigree, and thus winning over choosier consumers. A new sun filter called UVMune 400, for instance, is capable of absorbing ultra-long UVA rays that can cause skin ageing and skin diseases. It is powered by L’Oréal’s Mexoryl 400 technology, which the company says took 10 years of research to develop. UVMune 400 has already been rolled out into La Roche Posay’s Anthelios sunscreen range, while under the YSL Beauté range, L’Oréal’s lab team created what it calls a “dark micronisation extraction process” to extract a higher concentration of active molecules from a particular kind of saffron for the Or Rouge face cream. To meet consumer demand, Balooch is well aware that the company needs to offer cutting-edge ingredients and performance. Ingredients and discoveries may be shared across brands or kept for a single name, but the company intends to keep sharing the wealth. “We’re also using computer vision to help improve our diagnostics for benchmarking our products’ performance,” adds Balooch. Computer vision can be used to analyse skin images to identify changes in markers such as pigmentation, wrinkles and scarring, as well assist with quality control by detecting minute differences in product colour and texture. “For us, it’s about making people’s choices faster and lives easier. If we don’t deliver on that, consumer fatigue sets in,” Balooch argues. “We look at tensions. A lot of consumer tensions will not be solved by deep tech [like consumer devices]. We’ll solve them with new formulas, with research into the microbiome, and in biotech, for example.” No more lab rats A core focus of L’Oréal has been reconstructed skin models. Over 40 years ago, L’Oréal began developing reconstructed skin to evaluate how cosmetic ingredients and products behave on human skin, both for safety and efficacy. Over the years, the developments have been rolled up into a new company, Episkin, which has labs in France, China and Brazil. Episkin involves the culture of human skin cells obtained from a donor sample, which are then grown in-lab and layered onto a “scaffold” to create a 3D model. Episkin allows for a reduction in reliance on animal testing, as well as greater accuracy and precision with diagnostics. At the Aulnay campus, however, scientists are working even further ahead on a bioprinting model. Unlike Episkin, L’Oréal’s bioprinting suite involves specialised 3D printers that deposit “bioink”, a combination of living cells and biomaterials, layer by layer, to create the skin cell structure. Allowing for much more precise placement of biomaterials, scientists can then create much more customisable microarchitectures, such as scarred skin, or wrinkled skin, or even multiple cell types or vascular networks. It’s an emerging field, and these models are yet to be transferred to Episkin for larger-scale production, but wider access to better skin modelling has already helped the company refine its ingredient profile through testing new ingredients. The skin microbiome has another area of focus for the business, with innovations and discovery into how the microbiome plays a role in the development of conditions such as eczema have allowed for products like La Roche Posay’s Lipikar and Effaclar ranges. Designed to relieve eczema and acne respectively, both draw on research from in-lab skin modelling. Considered chronic conditions, eczema has been on the rise since the 1970s, while acne has increased by 10 per cent in the last decade, research has found. “We want to provide options to those who are underserved,” explains Balooch. “We want to provide an understanding of your skin, your biology, your environment, and use that to make services and experiences tailor-made.” Through their corporate venture capital arm, Bold, the group has also invested in a number of biotech start-ups. In June, Bold invested in the Series B round of Debut, a biomanufacturing company that creates “cell-free” cosmetic ingredients. A hybrid approach At Vivatech, alongside the Microsoft Teams collaboration and 3D Shu:brow, the company also displayed L’Oréal Paris Colorsonic, a device to make home hair colouring easier, and Lancôme Hapta, a device developed to help those with motor issues apply makeup. Other buzzy innovations have included the Rouge Sur Mesure device, released under the YSL Beauté brand which allows users to create completely bespoke lipstick shades on the fly, with up to 4,000 shade combinations possible. Originally launched in 2021, Balooch says the device, which retails at £260, frequently sells out when new drops of stock are released. When it comes to mass appeal, Balooch says they’re happy to play both sides. “We want to scale and go big, but we also want to provide people with niche experiences if we think that that’s something that they want as well,” he says. With consumer tech, their approach to key performance indicators and return on investment is different, he says. “We have some projects where we’re using diagnostics to help people find the right products… What’s most important for us is making sure that people go to the point of sale and convert with the products that are right for them.” With other projects that are more conceptual, Balooch argues a new way of understanding value creation is necessary. “It may not be a monetary KPI. Depending on the project, it may be more about social impact or community,” he says. “The ultimate goal that we have with beauty and technology is regardless of the touchpoint, we can provide a service that will allow them to augment their results, and better guide them to the right product,” says Balooch. Clarification: Updated to make clearer that €1.1 billion was invested into R&I across the group. (05/07/23) To receive the Vogue Business newsletter, sign up here. Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com. More from this author: Is Mecca the next big global beauty retailer? In beauty M&A, what makes a good term sheet? Why Ren Clean Skincare quietly cut a third of its portfolio

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