PAIN: Anyone working on a online beauty product dealing with skin shades? 💄💋

jjY·Jul 06, 2020

I'm surprised that there isn't a beauty brand that's working on finding the right shade for your skin tone in a virtual environment.I just received a sample along with my order for a concealer that included 5 different shades from Tarte. I thought nothing of it, until I found the perfect shade for under my eyes and ended up buying the product. I usually refrain from selecting samples (waste-conscious), but I thought this was ingenious when I thought back to all the times I looked up possible foundations, realizing that I never followed through with the purchase because I was never sure of my shade color. I realized that I would never buy shade-based beauty products unless I was in person so that I could be sure of my purchase. I share my perspective because it's an actual pain (e.g., even now, the shade you use under your eyes is different than the shade you would use as foundation) and since major deals are online anyways. Especially now with COVID, I don't want to spend the effort and risk to go into a store either. I'm wondering if there's a way where a beauty company can help you figure out your shade tone in relation to real life objects. Or has anyone found an ingenious way to figure it out themselves? *FYI: Yes, I'm aware there are photo comparisons, but colors are never accurate on your screen as compared to real life. Your screen resolution shows a slightly different color than other resolutions (an issue that we come across quite frequently when paired designing).

Isla·Jul 06, 2020

I wonder if it's even possible. I don't know much about beauty, but I know that when it comes to house paint (hear me out) inventions like Color Muse have been created to isolate specific colors without the need for comparison images. You just hold it to the wall or a piece of furniture and it identifies the "true" color.

jjY·Jul 06, 2020

I, too, wonder if it's possible. I totally hear you about the paint as that is a close comparison! I wonder how many times a beauty company has to deal with returns or exchanges and how big of a cost it is to them. Or the pain of the customer who isn't able to return it for whatever reasons the return policy is.

AnaMartinez·Jul 07, 2020

I recently read about IL MAKIAGE, apparently they use AI to help you find the perfect match for your foundation, and claim to be 95% accurate. I haven't tried but I am also pretty interested in learning more about this. Since this is a huge problem for me, not only for foundation or concealer but also for finding the perfect shampoo for my hair type.

jjY·Jul 07, 2020

I haven't heard of them! Wow, great branding. I think personalized service from beauty brands should become a thing. It would be great to have a beauty database that can help you identify same shades across different brands. For instance, if you input "Honey" from NARS, that's the same shade of "Deep Sand" from Tarte (the names are made up).