Why custom foundation is the makeup of the future
MILLIONS of people have watched this mesmerising video of a woman getting her foundation shade perfectly matched to her face.
FINDING a shade of foundation that perfectly matches your skin is like finding a needle in a haystack.
Some brands only offer a few colours, and really, how many of us actually fit into a neat ivory, beige or caramel category? And let’s not even start on how tricky it can be for women of colour.
Enter custom makeup. Foundation that has been matched exactly to your own skin tone sounds too good to be true, but it’s set to become the new trend in makeup.
French brand Lancome, which is owned by L’Oreal, recently released a new foundation, Le Teint Particulier. This video showing how the foundation comes together, has received a whopping 44 million views online.
Here’s how it works. A staff member scans your facial skin tone and the data is processed. A machine blends the formula at the counter and your personalised shade number is handwritten on the bottle for you to take home.
Elle magazine’s Danielle Prescod got her own shade made and reviewed the whole experience online. She said the best bit is watching all the colours and pigments mixed together.
“Lancome’s custom made machine is equipped with eight peristaltic pumps that create an airtight blending and dispensing process. I know, because I watched,” she wrote.
“First, I saw the colours on the computer pouring out of these eight little valves into a clear plastic container. That was me! After the dispensing was complete, the liquid goes into another machine that shakes it up in hyper speed so that the colours blend seamlessly together. Then, after about 15 minutes, my custom colour was ready.”
After testing the finished product on her face, she decided it was a little off.
“We went back to the computer and decided to take it one shade lighter. Luckily, this did not mean we had to start all over again. It just meant it would distribute the right amount of new pigment to lighten the shade. Back into the machine it went and after another quick shake, my custom colour was finally ready,” she wrote.
While we wait for Le Teint Particulier to come to Australia, there are products like The Body Shop’s Shade Adjusting Drops or the app MatchCo can help you out in the meantime.