South Korean beauty buffs can now thank AI for the perfect foundation shade

Amorepacific

11/07/2024 08:00

By Hyun Young Yi and Daewoung Kim
       SEOUL, July 11 (Reuters) - Customers have booked out
South Korean cosmetics giant AmorePacific's  090430.KS  new
artificial intelligence (AI) beauty lab, where robots custom mix
face products and the latest technology recommends the most
suitable lipstick colours. 
    "Everyone has their own specific skin tone, but usually they
buy the most common colour available over-the-counter," said
Kwon You-jin, a 32-year-old customer at the firm's bespoke skin
cosmetics service. 
    "Knowing more data about my own skin, and seeing the
before-and-after firsthand, is a very good experience," she
said, after receiving an AI-generated report on the condition of
her skin.
    A robot then mixed a foundation that perfectly matched her
skin tone.
    More cosmetics firms are embracing AI to boost sales, with
global brands such as L'Oréal S.A.  OREP.PA  and LVMH-owned
 LVMH.PA  Sephora using it to tailor products to customers'
needs. 
    Global beauty industry sales including cosmetics hit $625.6
billion in 2023, climbing steadily annually since dipping in
2020 during COVID-19 according to Statista Market Insights. 
    AmorePacific said it uses AI to recommend the best choices
for a customer from 205 different skin foundations or 366
different lip product colours.
    "We used deep learning, machine learning techniques to take
the process that experts use to evaluate data from many peoples'
skins into an (automated) service," said engineer Lee Young-jin,
an adviser for AmorePacific's custom beauty business.
    Analysts said using AI instead of human consultants could
speed up product development and reduce variables. 
    "No matter how professional an expert is, individual
deviations can be large, and evaluating cosmetics by consulting
30 to 40 experts all the time is difficult," said Yang Yong Suk,
principal researcher at South Korea's Electronics and
Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) who co-developed a
deep learning model for a cosmetic product's texture. 
    "These days, product development time has shortened, and an
ever-larger amount of new products are launched faster," Yang
added. "Combining AI technologies could lower hurdles further."
    The market for using AI in beauty and cosmetics industries
is forecast to more than double from $3.27 billion in 2023 to
$8.1 billion in 2028 as services such as personalised beauty
recommendations, skin analysis and diagnostics, and virtual
makeup artists expand, analysis provider Business Research
Company said in January.
    

 (Reporting by Hyun Young Yi and Daewoung Kim; Writing by Joyce
Lee; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree and Miral Fahmy)
 ((joyce.lee@tr.com;))