Dive Brief:
- Perfect Corp. has launched the latest version of its YouCam Makeup app, called Beauty 3.0, combining artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, augmented reality (AR) and human touch learnings, according to a press release. The concept is to provide a personalized, proactive and accurate virtual try-on experience.
- The beauty tech innovator said it wants to "reimagine" the way consumers connect and shop for beauty products with in-store, mobile and web capabilities that allow virtual try-ons with more than 200 beauty brands and 700 million users. Brands include Estee Lauder, MAC, Target and YSL.
- Beauty 3.0 is "the next phase in the evolution of digital beauty," the press release said. YouCam Makeup was honored as the 2018 Best Beauty App at the Cosmetic Executive Women's Beauty Insider Awards earlier this year. The company's Beauty 2.0 app, featuring AR, debuted in 2015.
Dive Insight:
Companies are refining their technology capabilities to allow customers to get a virtual look at what they will look like in fashions and cosmetics. Similar tech is being used for home furnishings, another category, which, like beauty, has been at the forefront of the movement. Perfect Corp. has been leading the charge in virtual beauty tech for several years now, and its latest offering puts AI and AR together in a shopping app to reinvent the "online-to-offline consumer beauty journey," per the company's website.
"By introducing personalized, on-demand services like in-app live Beauty Advisor consultations, as well as instant product recommendations based on skin tone, face shape, and beauty preferences, we are able to deliver the next generation [of] smart beauty experience[s] designed just for you," Perfect Corp. CEO Alice Chang said in the press release.
The company offers a suite of free beauty apps. One app, for face detection and tracking, combines AR and AI-powered deep learning for real-time facial detection that picks up over 100 focal points for precise video and photo editing, according to the website. Other apps include: facial mapping using AI and AR; makeup AR; live 3D face AR; and skincare AR.
Augmented reality-based virtual try-on apps are popular throughout the beauty category, from Sephora's Virtual Artist app to Modiface's eye-tracking technology, used by the Smashbox Cosmetics Makeup iOS app. Modiface was acquired this year by L'Oreal, which then began offering Live Makeup Consultation, where a beauty adviser could use AR to place recommended products on a shopper's face. Estee Lauder also partnered with Perfect Corp. to create an AR mobile training program for beauty advisers last December.
The company has partnered with several other retailers in recent years, including joining with Macy's, Juicy Couture and Hearst's Cosmopolitan magazine for the publication's first print-to-digital beauty experience in September. Around the same time, it partnered with independent fashion house Flying Solo NYC to create virtual looks for New York Fashion Week, and in the spring, Perfect Corp. added personalized cosmetics consulting to its YouCam Makeup app, putting consumers in touch with live beauty advisers. It called the experience "Beauty Advisor 1-on-1."
Last year, the company also teamed its YouCam Makeup app with QVC to enable real-time, augmented reality-based mobile virtual try-ons. The app was used with a selection of Laura Geller New York beauty products being featured on QVC. Also last year, Perfect Corp. added a live streaming feature to the YouCam app.
