Has the Magic 8 Ball of skin care arrived?
With L’Oréal unveiling its latest Cell Bioprint device on Monday at the annual CES tech showcase in Las Vegas, the beauty giant is looking to assess consumers’ unique skin concerns of not just the present but more importantly, the future — and in just five minutes at the beauty counter.
“We want to give people an idea of how to correct the trajectory of their skin health, and not just reactively address what has already happened,” Guive Balooch, global managing director of augmented beauty and open innovation at L’Oréal, said in an interview.
The tool, slated to pilot with a L’Oréal brand in Asia later this year, has been five years in the making alongside Korean start-up NanoEnTek, which develops biochemical skin diagnostic systems.
It differs from existing skin analysis tools — including L’Oréal’s own L’Oréal Paris Skin Genius — in that it’s not an imaging tool, or one that functions via a 2D or 3D scan of one’s face that detects fine lines, blemishes, hyperpigmentation and other existing conditions.
“Those give you a snapshot of where your skin is today, but what people really want to know is their biology — and how understanding it can help them right now to improve their skin health in the future,” said Balooch.
Rather, L’Oréal Cell Bioprint works by measuring the presence — or lack thereof — of certain proteins in the skin, each of which has different implications for the conditions a consumer may be more prone to in the future. The tool also calculates one’s biological skin age, and indicates how well certain active ingredients, like retinol, will work on their skin.
“There are certain proteins, or what we call biomarkers, which if present in high levels, dispose you to a greater likelihood of having wrinkles, fine lines, or dark spots,” Balooch said. “For instance, we might give you a visual diagnosis and say, ‘OK — your skin isn’t dry at this moment, but based on your biomarker related to dry skin, you have either a low, medium or high chance of having dry skin in the future.’”
The device, which aims to take the guesswork out of skin care, can then help ascertain a personalized regimen to optimize skin health in the long term. To undergo the assessment, a strip of facial tape is placed on one’s cheek and inserted into a protein-isolating buffer solution, before being deposited into the Cell Bioprint cartridge for analysis.
L’Oréal Cell Bioprint
Courtesy
“It’s a protein measurement tool at the point of sale that works in five minutes — nothing exists in the beauty market like this,” claimed Balooch, adding that so far, the Cell Bioprint can detect just under 20 kinds of proteins which correlate with consumers’ most common skin concerns.
“Those proteins took us years to uncover and to clinically study, but every time we find a new one in the lab, we will add it to the experience,” said Balooch, adding that the tool will most likely be paired with a luxury L’Oréal skin care brand during its initial rollout, “and then we will cascade — this plan has worked well for us in the past.”
At CES 2022, L’Oréal revealed its at-home hair coloring Colorsonic tool, hailed as a revolutionary development in the space thanks to its mess-free application. In 2023, it revealed a number of prototypes including Hapta, a computerized makeup applicator intended to support consumers with limited mobility, which launched at the 2024 Paris Paralympics.
Like those innovations, the Cell Bioprint “is a tech that aims to solve a real problem,” Balooch said.
“We’re finding that nine out of 10 women are frustrated with their skin care solutions, and part of that stems from the crowdedness and confusion of the market. We must make that number go down; we must make people less frustrated and more precise, and that will take biology and tech to do.”
