Digital Beauty: Into The Future For Beauty Brands

Augmented reality has arrived to the beauty industry. Huge brands such as L?Ore?al, Urban Decay and Sephora have developed apps enabling customers to try on colours without ever leaving home. It’s not a flawless system, but they do work to show you what colours will look like on you when you upload a selfie. Trying on every shade in Urban Decay’s Vice Lipstick app is really rather fun (and no need for wipes afterwards). Upcoming features rolling out will include ?live face scanning?, where we can scan any image in print, or video, and will then be told how to recreate the look and what products to use. How intriguing… Count us in.

LIGHTEN UP

The LuMee Case is the light-up phone case beloved by celebrities. The idea came from a make-up mirror – little white lights surround your phone screen to illuminate your face. Illuminate – LuMee – get it? Rose gold LuMee Case, €70 at littlewoodsireland.ie.

WHATSALON

This new app on the block is an Irish start-up that aims to connect you with the nearest salon to you and also give you a feel for what they are like via reviews, good imagery and a strong search function to browse treatments and services available before you book (which you can also do via the app). Set up in Cork, it’s a nationwide winner – we’ve tried it, and can verify.

INSTA-BEAUTY

Not sure how to choose a beauty stylist for an important occasion? Worried, despite good recommendations, their style may not suit yours? Fret not – Instagram is the ultimate portfolio for the digitally savvy style teams. Here are some of Ireland’s best beauty Insta feeds to get inspired by. Get booking…

This article originally appeared in the December issue of IMAGE magazine, on shelves nationwide now.