I own a ridiculous number of lipsticks and skincare products, most of which cost me a stupid amount of money. L'Oréal Perso is a device that promises to mix up perfectly customized lip tints and skin serums, and based on a demo I saw at CES, I'm pretty sure this thing will save me hundreds and hundreds of dollars.
Perso is essentially a soap dispenser, except instead of pushing soap downward, an internal motor pushes the contents of three cartridges upward. There will be two separate devices, one for skincare and a separate one for lipstick, when Perso launches early next year. L'Oréal is working on a model specifically for foundation, too.
A corresponding app analyzes your face to come up with a perfectly customized blend of products, including moisturizer, antioxidants and an active ingredient like retinol. The skin analysis takes into account the condition of your skin — pore size, fine lines and wrinkles, dryness, etc. — as well as the environment around you, including UV ray strength and humidity. It uses that information to adjust the amounts of each product, then dispenses the magic potion at the top of the device.
This will save me countless dollars and hours, because instead of buying multiple products and layering them, Perso will deliver a perfectly blended cream with all of the moisturizing and active ingredients I need.
"A lot of the things you mix in Perso can't be found in one product, because they might separate," said Guive Balooch, global vice president of L'Oreal's technology incubator.
Mixing the ingredients at the point of delivery makes each more effective.
The lipstick version of Perso also has an app, which analyzes your skin tones to recommend a shade but also lets you browse the most popular makeup looks on Instagram to virtually try on trendy hues. I spotted a beautiful shade of bright red on an Instagrammer, and in the app preview it looked decent with my skin tone, so I decided to give it a shot.
Perso dispensed a red, pink and coral, which I mixed up with an applicator and applied to my lips using the detachable mirrored compact that sits atop the device.
The result was a beautiful peony red, which applied smoothly and lasted well into the evening.
Perso doesn't have a price tag yet, though Balooch said the device will be "reachable to many people."
"We don't see ourselves making a lot of money off the device," he added. "We just want people to be excited and buy the cartridges."
Perso cartridges will be equivalent to the products you can already buy from L'Oréal and its brands, which include the affordable Maybelline and high-end lines like Lancome and Skinceuticals. The price of the cartridges will align with the price of each brand's existing products, so you won't pay an exorbitant amount for a Maybelline lipstick cartridge.
Perso's personalized blend of skincare and makeup could help me banish the tubes of lipstick and bottles of creams and face oils that have taken over my bathroom like an invasive species. It's one of the best devices I saw at CES by far.
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