The global beauty giant also displayed three of its partner startups, illustrating how L’Oréal is working to stay ahead of the curve on industry disruption from fast-thinking smaller beauty tech players.
Viva Technology Paris, an international event co-organized by the Publicis Group and Les Echos
Group, is dedicated to the growth of startups, digital transformation and innovation. This is the second consecutive year that L’Oréal will be exhibiting.
Connected beauty
L’Oréal has presented the tech in the US previously, but this show marked the first time it has presented Lancôme’s Le Teint Particulier Custom Made Foundation in Europe.
It is a patented technology that matches an individual’s unique skin tone to create customized foundation at the point of sale, offering automatic customisation and a finely personalised product.
The beauty giant also presented its Kérastase Hair Coach Powered by Withings, the world’s first smart hairbrush, capable of rating the quality of hair, monitoring the effects of different hair care routines and providing customized product recommendations.
Its ‘all-new and beefed-up’ version of Makeup Genius, a virtual makeup app based on augmented reality and downloaded 20 million times worldwide, was also on show, along with sister app Nail Genius, which allows for virtual testing of nail polish.
The sun care innovation My UV Patch by La Roche-Posay, the first stretchable skin sensor designed to monitor UV exposure minimizing the frequency of sun burns, was also on show, and visitors were able to use the “Look consultation” connected counter to virtually try a new cut, color or style using the application Style My Hair by L’Oréal Professionnel.
The 'disrupt café'
The three partner startups on show - OSCARh, Never Eat Alone and Monkey tie – presented innovative methods to improve work experience, according to L’Oréal.
The startups were:
- Never Eat Alone, which helps creating connections and increasing in-house networking between employees in different departments at L’Oréal USA via a lunch scheduling application.
- OSCARh, which is working with L’Oréal to create innovative career paths (“Extended Company”) that enable L’Oréal employees to get immersed in an innovative startup or SME for 3 months.
- Monkey tie, which is codeveloping “Career Profiler” with L’Oréal, an innovative platform aiming to streamline internal.