Yes, your eyes are definitely not tricking you. YSL Beauté has engineered a special – and portable – lipstick pod gadget that can create a bespoke colour whenever you want to apply.
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Debuted last year at the Consumer Electronics Show by L’Oréal (which owns YSL Beauté), it’s called Yves Saint Laurent Beauté Rouge Sur Mesure Powered by Perso, and we’re getting all the lowdown on how the cool at-home device is going to work in reality now.
You’re probably wondering, how exactly does it work? Well, the A1-powered gizmo takes three different lipstick colour pods – currently, it dispenses the YSL Beauté Velvet Cream Matte Finish – and squirts out the colours required to make it once you’ve chosen and selected your desired shade through the device’s accompanying app.
The new personalised colour then comes out of the top and is ready to be applied. The top of the Bluetooth-enabled device doubles as a compact – if it looks strikingly similar to you, it’s because the Le Cushion Encre de Peau compact has the same design too – so you can take it on the go and touch up your colour as needed.
Rock your bespoke “couture” lips whenever you want à la Kaia Gerber, the supermodel-to-be and daughter of the legendary Cindy Crawford who’s been the face of YSL Beauté since October 2018 | Photo: YSL Beauté/Instagram
As far as the tech goes, choosing your shade is fairly easy as you can select from three built-in functions in the iOS or Android app: the Shade Wheel, which makes it easy to select a colour from a wheel; the Shade Match, which creates a shade to complement an outfit or a favourite lipstick colour through a photo; or the Shade Stylist, which relies on a smart algorithm to choose between three shades that’ll best work with an outfit, again based on a photo.
Additionally, the app also includes a social component that’s somewhat similar to Instagram Stories, showcasing colours other users created and highlighting real-time trends and advice from “YSL experts” and other users.
The lipstick pod sets are sold separately and cannot be swapped in for anything other than those pods. Each cartridge is supposedly verified through RFID, which allows the machine to detect the formula type inserted in each canal, track its consumption, and offer to automatically reorder the cartridge if needed.
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While you can purchase individual colour cartridges, you unfortunately will not be able to mix and match the pods from different sets at this point of time – it’s said that the device won’t operate if you try.
As for the machine’s battery life, we’ve learned from L’Oréal that the gizmo charges through a standard USB-C cable, and should last more than a week with one full charge.
Despite the minor disadvantage of not being able to mix just any colour from the pods available, it’s definitely an interesting piece of gadget, if you ask us.
Over the last few years, the appeal of customisation and personalisation have taken the world by storm with brand after brand offering some form of bespoke service to keep loyal customers to stay while attracting new ones at the same time.
But more than that, this YSL Beauté device is also just a great step forward in the global fight for sustainability.
With one device that can create multiple looks, it reduces the need for us to buy multiple lipsticks in the shades that we like, thus lowering the demand for new products and their carbon-footprint. Let’s be honest, how many of us can say we’ve gone through at least one of the countless lipsticks we have in our collection?
Now, we know what you’re thinking: how and when can I possibly get my hands on this nifty little gadget?
Unfortunately, Daily Vanity has checked with our friends at YSL Beauté Singapore and there’s currently no news about the Rouge Sur Mesure Powered by Perso coming over to our side of the world.
For now, the device is available for pre-order in the U.S. It retails for US$299, and comes with two sets of colour cartridges of your choice. It’s said to be more widely available sometime later this year – possibly around September, so let’s cross all our well-manicured fingers in the meantime and hope that it will be made available to us here by then or perhaps by early 2022.
If you can’t wait to experience the magic, the only alternative right now is to get a friend or family member residing in the U.S. to place the pre-order for you.
Nevertheless, one thing’s for certain: it’s a device that has certainly piqued our interest. Is ‘smart makeup’ set to be the future for the beauty industry? What do you think?
