L’Oreal’s Makeup Genius app in local launch

No need to try on that lipstick or eyeshadow, your smartphone can add a range of new cosmetic looks — virtually.

L'Oreal Paris Makeup Genius app lets a user virtually try on thousands of cosmetic products.

It’s instant make-up time. There’s no need to try on that lipstick or eyeshadow; your smartphone and tablet can deck you out with a range of wild new cosmetic looks — virtually.

Consider these scenarios. You’re in a shop, scan a lipstick barcode on a cosmetic product, and suddenly you see your face reflected on your phone sporting the lipstick. Or you’re watching a fashion show, are alerted to a file downloaded to your smartphone and, moments later, your face has the exact make-up look as the model you were watching.

Once the stuff of fantasy, from today it becomes reality, part of the experience make-up giant L’Oreal Paris offers via its Makeup Genius app, launching here today.

Of course this is great PR hype for L’Oreal. The app is a digital marketing tool with the potential to push thousands of L’Oreal products to customers, but clever nonetheless. The downloads to date speak for themselves.

In France, China and the US, the app so far has been downloaded 10 million times. L’Oreal expects to double that globally by year’s end. Christophe Eymery, head of digital, L’Oreal Australia, says the company predicts 500,000 downloads in Australia this year — a fair slab of the ­population.

L’Oreal won’t stop there. It is investigating creating an Apple Watch app, and preliminary talks are under way.

Eymery says L’Oreal wants to make use of sensors on the underside of the watch to analyse the conditions of a wearer’s skin and offer advice on the best skincare product for that day.

The Watch app would glean weather conditions and temperature before making recommendations.

A customer could scan a L’Oreal product barcode in a store, see a mock-up of the cosmetic on their face, and follow through with a watch-based payment. Sample sticks of lipstick could become a thing of the past.

L’Oreal has a New Jersey-based IT section developing these ideas known as its “digital beauty incubator”. Created 30 years ago, it employs about 30 people, mainly scientists.

An earlier L’Oreal Paris app, the Colour ­Genius, would recommend nail polish, lipstick and eyeshadow to match an outfit you snapped with your smartphone camera.

L’Oreal’s incubator also placed intelligent vending machines in New York subway stations that sized you up as you approached, assessed your colour scheme and recommended a matching nail polish colour.

The Makeup Genius app is the company’s third entree into ­modern consumer technology. You start by taking a photo of your face. L’Oreal says the app analyses 64 data points of your ­appearance.

Once you register your face, you can access up to 4500 L’Oreal products available in Australia and try them on virtually: lipstick, powders, mascara, eyeliner and more. Makeup Genius then mirrors your face with the cosmetic applied in real time.

Alternatively, you can select from about 20 complete looks that use a combination of L’Oreal products. Once selected, an iPhone, iPad or Android device turns into a mirror that shows you with the chosen look applied, in real time.

It’s not just a still image. Customers can change their facial expression and test out new looks at various angles and under different lighting conditions.

If you’re game, you can take a snap of the new you, even video, email it to friends or share it on Facebook.

Eymery says L’Oreal has entered a partnership with Image Metrics, the company that created the ageing technology for Brad Pitt’s character in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, who ­begins life as an old man and ages in reverse.

He says that at the Cannes film festival in May, during a fashion event, L’Oreal plans to quickly create make-up profiles of models on the runway and beam them to the Makeup Genius app. Users will have the model’s make-up choices on their faces in minutes.

Eymery says Priceline Pharmacy will be the first local retail outlet to have L’Oreal’s barcode scanning, which will create virtual mock-ups of cosmetic products on a customer’s face in store.

The app is available through Apple’s App store and Google Play.