In my final weeks of primary school our teacher wanted us to take part in a special project, we each had to write what we imagined the world to be like 2020. Our predictions were then locked into a time capsule and buried deep in the gardens of our playground, not to be disturbed for twenty years. I remember predicting all of our schoolwork would be done on touch-screen computers and we’d only have virtual teachers that would pop up in the corner of each computer screen. I also imagined that air travel would be the usual mode of transport and everyone would own super-fast hovercrafts. Now it’s only 2011 so we still have 9 years to get the hovercrafts and virtual teachers up and running. Thinking back to this moment it got me thinking about what the beauty industry might look like in the future. Like anyone would nowadays, I googled ‘the future of the beauty industry’, I found a few articles and some great ideas, so in keeping with 10-year-old self, I decided to predict what I hope the future holds for the beauty industry.
Customize me
Working on a beauty counter has taught me that people will buy an eye-shadow palette and one or two in the set will never be used. But custom palettes can change all that. We are beginning to see custom palettes in the beauty industry more and more nowadays and it’s a great initiative. They offer the customer the chance to pick their favourite blush, face powder, concealer and eye-shadow shades. These shades can then be made up into one palette. The idea is ingenious and saves so much time when getting ready to face the day. One brand that is already firmly behind the concept is Inglot Cosmetics; the Polish based make-up brand opened their first UK store in London’s Westfield shopping centre. They stock over 200 eye shadow shades, over 200 shades of nail polish, and more than 150 shades of lipstick. Customers can create their custom palettes using Inglot’s ‘Freedom System’, they choose from a number of combinations such as face powder, one blush and two eye-shadows, or four eye-shadows and one blush. As much as I adore Inglot products this is one concept that I’m hoping other brands will also catch on too. Mac, Bobbi Brown, Nars, Illamasqua, even premium luxury brands such as Chanel, YSL and Dior could all take a leaf out Inglot’s book and implement a freedom system. Who wouldn’t want to create their own perfect palette?
Clean as a whistle
The state of high-street cosmetic stands in the UK is something of a worry at the moment. Stores like Boots and Superdrug house a large range of self-service make-up stands that usually have pre-teen girls sticking their fingers in everything. But manned premium beauty stands aren’t much better. Dr Elizabeth Brooks, a biological sciences professor at Philadelphia’s Jefferson Medical College conducted an extensive two-year study of public makeup testers.
‘We went to department stores, speciality stores, drugstores – everywhere’ She reveals.
Dr Brooks and her team of researchers found staph, strep and even E.coli bacteria on the make-up testers. They tested the makeup on Saturdays – the busiest day for cosmetic counters – and 100% of the makeup was contaminated.
Dermatologist, Dr. Zein Obagi, explained the risks of infection makeup testers can hold.
"If a woman has a cut on her lip and borrows lipstick from someone who has a cold sore, she'll get a cold sore. You can pass herpes (the cold sore virus), conjunctivitis and all sorts of things through sharing makeup."
For the beauty industry these are some pretty ugly facts. But the festering bacteria can be tackled. For starters free, sealed, sample sachets could start to replace communal testers. Sachets are already a regular fixture in most fashion and beauty magazines and hopefully in the near future they’ll also start to make an appearance on the beauty counter. These sample sachets could hold the majority of beauty products such as foundations, primers, cream blush, loose powders, lip-gloss and lipstick.
To ensure people didn’t take advantage of the free sample system, sachets could be handed out by a member of staff or available at the till point.
Dare to be Different
Makeup artists like Pat McGrath and Alex Box are two of the most innovative figures in the beauty industry. After being mesmerised by some of their avant-garde work on the catwalk and in editorial masterpieces it makes me wish we lived in a world where eccentric, artistic makeup was considered the norm. I’d like to think life would be a lot more fun - and certainly more colourful - if day-to-day beauty was like flicking through a bizarre beauty picture book. Of course, once again the idea isn’t without its flaws - there’d be a serious risk for anyone caught in the rain without an umbrella.
The Perfect Shade
I mentioned custom palettes before and the next obvious step has to be custom colours. Paint companies have mastered the colour-match technology, with Dulex offering to scan the colour from any object and then create a paint that matches. In the future I’d like to see cosmetics brands offering something similar. You could match your lip, nail or eye colour perfectly to your outfit, or just create your own custom shade. I think future technology advances could make this service available at beauty counters in the next decade.
How amazing would it be to try on a lipstick, and instead of just wishing it was a little lighter or darker, it could actually be transformed right then and there into your ideal shade.
Most women trail round countless beauty stands dreaming of their perfect nail/eye/lip colour, but they’re never able to find anything that perfectly matches the picture in their head. Or if they are lucky enough to find that dream shade, the fickle side of the beauty industry means that just weeks after discovering it, the perfect shade is discontinued. Colour match technology could change this, and allow the customers to experiment with colour and dictate their own trends.
Now perhaps in twenty years time someone will find this article floating around cyberspace, and they’ll wonder how I so accurately predicted the future of the beauty industry. Or they’ll wonder how I managed to get it so wrong. Maybe there are more drastic changes in store for the beauty world, and I’ve only begun to scratch the surface of changes to come. As one of the biggest and most influential industries, the beauty world could begin to revolutionise the world of retail, giving customers more choice, freedom and fun.
