Amazon Implements L’Oréal’s ModiFace Virtual Makeup Try-ons

PARIS — ModiFace is providing its artificial intelligence-powered technology for Amazon’s first virtual cosmetics try-ons.
L’Oréal, which acquired the provider of augmented reality and artificial intelligence for the beauty industry in 2018, said Tuesday that Amazon customers in the U.S. and Japan can now use the front-facing camera on their mobile phones to digitally try on lipstick shades in a live video of themselves or on a selfie.
“The idea behind us acquiring ModiFace was really this belief that augmented reality would change the beauty experience, and the mission for us was to elevate beauty experience” everywhere the group is engaging with its brands, Lubomira Rochet, L’Oréal’s chief digital officer, told WWD.
“The second stream of work was to integrate our ModiFace technologies where people were discovering different brands and shopping,” she continued, explaining the technology has also been rolled out to other retailers, such as A.S. Watson and DM-Drogerie Markt.
“The uniqueness of the ModiFace technology — which is run on Amazon Web Services — lies in its photo-realistic results and automatic, AI-enabled shade calibration,” L’Oréal said in a statement. “The AR simulation of each shade is done automatically, based on AI-powered analysis of information provided by makeup brands, but also images and descriptions of the product available on social media. The technology is able to analyze textual and visual information related to a particular makeup shade and to realistically reproduce it via augmented reality.”
ModiFace technology had already been soft-launched for a subset of Amazon consumers in the U.S. and Japan, but the full deployment there is taking place now.
“We’ve been in the lab process with for months to see how its consumers were reacting to the ModiFace technology,” Rochet said.
“With this new AI-powered virtual experience, Amazon customers can now conveniently try on thousands of lipstick products, save photos on their devices to share with friends and ultimately purchase with greater confidence — wherever they are, whenever they want, with products delivered right to their doorstep,” Nicolas Le Bourgeois, head of Amazon Beauty, said in the statement.
It’s likely the tie-in will ultimately include more than just lipsticks. “We will obviously explore other categories,” said Rochet, hinting that could be eye shadows or full color-cosmetics looks, for instance. “This is only the first step of the journey.”
The executive said that neither ModiFace nor L’Oréal collects or stores any data from Amazon customers trying out lipstick from L’Oréal brands and other brands on the site.
Key performance indicators from L’Oréal’s platforms have shown that where the ModiFace try-on service has been deployed, the time people spend on a site doubles and the conversion rate multiplies by three.
“Our belief is that when you innovate the beauty experience, everybody is set to benefit from it,” Rochet said.
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