L'Oreal: A Case Study of Augmented Reality

Augmented reality (AR) is the latest technological innovation that has the potential to change the face of retail industry. Many companies are taking the lead by creating AR-based apps that create a more personalized shopping experience for customers.

One such company that has taken a big dive into AR is L'Oreal. It's new revolutionary app called Makeup Genius is a complete game-changer when it comes to shopping for beauty products, as it allows you to try on pretty much any makeup or style virtually.

Essentially, this app scans your face and creates an image on your smartphone. It then allows you to try any of the 4,500 and odd products sold by L'Oreal to get a feel of how it would look on you before you go ahead and buy it. This app captures 64 facial data points and more than 100 different facial expressions to discern the shape of your eyes, lips and other facial contours, to place the makeup accurately on your face. You even have the option to save your selfie, share it with your contacts on social media and buy the products you used directly through the app.

Makeup Genius also comes pre-loaded with different makeup styles such as "Caresse", "So Timeless" and "Tropical," so you don't have to spend time picking individual makeup items when you're in a hurry.

So, what is the difference between Makeup Genius and other similar beauty apps available in the market today?

While the other apps use a static image of yourself to apply makeup, this app captures you in real-time because it uses augmented reality as the underlying technology. What this means is you can move your face, tilt it however you want and do any other expression to see how the makeup looks on you while you do all that! Its advanced facial recognition technology keeps the makeup in place even as you make all these movements.

Further, this app provides an accurate look of the makeup, regardless of your ethnicity. In fact, L'Oreal claims that this app works for women of all ethnicities, and in over 400 different lighting conditions to give you the most precise makeup.

Besides giving you a real feel of how you would look, this app also gives you the flexibility to find the products you want easily. With this app, you can scan an ad or an image to detect a color match in L'Oreal's products, so that you can have the looks of the person in that particular ad or image. So, if you want to try on the makeup of Megan Fox or Angelina Jolie, all that you have to do is take an image out of the Internet and scan it on this app. You'll get the same makeup choices within minutes and can try it on yourself within the next few minutes. All these aspects make Makeup Genius a ground-breaking app in the beauty world.

In fact, makeup doesn't get more fun and exciting than this!

Gary Herring is the President of The Albert Einstein Group, a product development, strategy creation, and manufacturing company where all of its roads end in retail.