There’s a hard truth about being the face of innovation for the world’s largest beauty company.
It’s not the rigorous travel schedule packed with digital culture and tech shows, such as this week’s CES, to represent L’Oréal. Although it can be exhausting to manage this, it’s also an exciting task to lead development and pioneer new forms. Good thing, too, because whatever inspiration is left needs to fuel new concepts and creative solutions, ensuring a steady stream of ideas worthy of the company’s high-profile pipeline for inventive products.
Although each part may seem difficult, the whole list is extremely intimidating. That’s one reason why tech chief executive officers, especially at startups, often sport messy hair, kicks and a hoodie. They’re too tired or stressed to put on anything else.
And so at CES in Las Vegas, when WWD caught up with Guive Balooch, global vice president of L’Oréal’s tech incubator and the executive who owns that ridiculous list of responsibilities, he looked inexplicably fresh. The huge layout and constant energy of CES exhausts most people almost immediately, but not a dark circle or under-eye bag was evident on the vice president, inviting a suspicion that L’Oréal must reserve some top-notch secret serums for its own ranks.
His smile was easy to see and his hair was gorgeous. It was understandable given who he works for — a multinational beauty empire with $34 billion in sales from its portfolio of brands, products and services across hair care, cosmetics, skin care and more. During the conversation, however, a second explanation emerged for his energy and verve.
This is the vibe of someone who’s genuinely excited about his work and his vision of how tech and beauty should fit together. He is determined to solve concrete problems for customers in order to make the technology more accessible to them. It amounts to what he calls “assistive beauty,” and this view informs the way the incubator develops beauty tech.
“The more I do this job, the more I realize that we have to start with what people need and desire and then backfill it with technology,” Balooch explained. “Unfortunately when you do that, you need to have multiple sets of technology to make something happen — both physical and digital.”
However, he feels that it is worth the extra complexity if it produces truly assistive beauty.
The principle drove development for L’Oréal’s two new devices: the new Hapta lipstick applicator, which was designed for consumers with limited motor capabilities, and Brow Magic, a system that uses intelligence, augmented reality and a hardware device that can create and print the perfect brow shape for the consumer.
In a broader conversation, Balooch shared more about these products, his tech strategy and his favorite innovation from his 16-plus-year career at L’Oréal.
WWD: You’ve created a lot of beauty hardware devices. Please tell me about your process for developing it and its interaction with the software. How does that dynamic work when there are multiple technologies in a system such as Brow Magic?
Guive Balooch: If I want to shape my eyebrows, this device is the best. However, I will need to be able analyse my face to determine what shape brows work best. You can then try it on virtually before you actually buy it. [apply] It’s because I need augmented realities, micro inkjet printers, and sensors to find hairs.
The more I realize that, when we start with what we want to achieve and then backfill it with technology, it’s usually not a tech-driven trend — and it’s not as easy, to be honest. Because all of them must work in harmony. Brow Magic comes with ink. It must be cosmetic grade. AR has to show you all the details, AI gives you the recommendation. [the device] Design and hardware must look great so that people believe they are using a beauty product. All three must work together. It also needs to be simple, quick and easy to use for consumers.
Because nobody cares about the technology inside, everything must be kept secret. They only care about how easy and fast it works. We must simplify, not over-engineer. This has been our challenge since the beginning.
Brow magic
Courtesy photo
WWD: It’s a lot of moving parts. Let’s start with one slice of that — the physical hardware. Could you please walk me through your device strategy.
G.B.: There are two options that I believe should be explored. The first is how can devices transform our skin and take our hair to new heights. It’s the formula plus device, and that combination allows for new levels of performance. We’re about to launch a dual LED therapy with Lancôme [Absolue Dual-LED Youth Treatment, which was unveiled at VivaTech 2022]The combination of formula, a rollable ball and two LEDs can lead to something that is impossible with only the formula.
There’s a lot of noise in beauty devices today, and for me, what matters is that you have the right test and they actually work. That’s the big challenge with all of these new devices. So that’s the first thing.
The second is that Brow Magic and Hapta have been rooted in a new kind of beauty. We call it “assistive beauty,” and I believe strongly in that vision. These projects will help our industry reach a new level. Our fingers and hands won’t be a barrier to our desired results. Our skill level won’t be the barrier. And whether I have great or unsatisfying results won’t depend on how skilled I am with a pencil, or how much I know about beauty and makeup.
Technology can help break down that barrier. Everybody should be able to get what they want, and I think that’s where the technology and device world can really add value to beauty.
Hapta
Courtesy photo
WWD: It’s distinct from tech companies, which all-too-often pump out solutions in search of a problem. This trap can be avoided by first identifying the problem and then looking at how technology can help. Is that deliberate or organic? It resembles the problem-driven approach to research that beauty, a science-based company, might use in the laboratory. It makes sense to expand it into other areas.
It could also explain how you ended up with two very different gadgets, because they share a common theme: Hapta, the lipstick tool for customers with motor skill issues, and Brow Magic, a system that promises goof-proof, personalized brows for people who need help shaping their own — which is practically everyone else. Both are designed to solve complex makeup problems.
G.B.: That’s exactly right. So let’s look at the two populations.
Today, one in 10 Americans has a motor impairment. That’s 42 million people. That’s not an enormous population, but the key point is that there’s a problem to solve. There are many people who can’t experience the beauty industry. They have money and can afford it, so they desire the same experience as everyone else. They must be included in the industry.
Then on the brow — this part is incredible — nine out of 10 women are not happy with the way that they shape their brow at home today. This requires skill and is difficult to stencil. You’re drawing, which is not simple to do. If you don’t have the skill that others do, it creates frustration.
It’s exactly like the Colorsonic project of last year. Coloring your hair at home can be messy and difficult. This is where you start. Then, you work on the problem. It’s much harder to do technically, because you have to find a lot of tech assets, but much better for the result of the product and the people. [Fortunately] I’ve been in the industry for 16 years, so I have enough technology assets to put these things together. I know that’s the way we will achieve things that help people.…It’s great that our industry is moving more toward technology, but we have to remember that our industry is successful because we understand what people want.
WWD: L’Oréal and you, in particular, have talked before about drawing from other areas of technology — like inkjet printers — and applying it to beauty, like with skin care and hair color, and now brows. You can see this inkjet tech appearing elsewhere.
G.B.: After years of experimentation, I have come to realize that inkjet is best applied to the brow. It should allow us to do the same thing as tattoos. [whether for] Permanent or semipermanent. But not for daily usage. It is one of the few beauty parts that offers this kind of experience. The eyebrow is the most important. The lip liner comes in second place, although it is very precise. The rest of the inkjet printing process becomes more complicated.
It is important to start with the consumer’s needs, and then make sure you have all the technology necessary to achieve it. If not then there’s no point to it. So I believe it’s the brow, and it’s such a big need anyway. Then after, there’s potential in using them to personalize things — but not directly on the face. [Makeup] Palettes and such things. But I won’t approach that until I feel like it’s something that’s easy to do.
WWD: L’Oréal has made great use of printer tech, but of course, it’s not the only one. I remember the launch of Procter & Gamble’s Opté Precision device in 2019. It claimed it could erase or cover up blemishes by printing a little makeup on the skin. Are there any particular tech innovations you’re eyeing next?
G.B.: About P&G, I think they did a very interesting job on the Opté device, and I was very inspired by it. It was amazing what they did with their team.
[As for the tech]You have the inkjet and then there’s this idea of making something simple. But then there’s something else, and this is the one thing about Brow Magic I was convinced about. There are different consumer needs for makeup — for example, I want to cover my spot. How can I accomplish this today? You can just use concealer to cover the problem. It’s very easy and fast to do this with my hand. However, brows are very skill-oriented and require a lot of stencil work. So we look at the amount of skill needed to do something, and that’s why precision applicators have to be used, in my opinion, for the tensions that consumers have on the most complicated beauty skill levels.
To answer your question regarding new technologies, the answer is yes. There’s the micro inkjet that we have to do. There are more miniaturized robotics, like what we’re creating with Hapta. It’s the first step for people with limited motor skills, but imagine doing really, really precise work one day. I think that that is going to come with “detect and apply.” I’ll give you an example: Maybe in the future, I could color one strand of hair. It seems crazy because I have 100,000 hair fibres. Maybe I could use a device to find the hair I want and color it only. The precision will come in the combination of physical and digital — and the way it applies that could be dispensing. It could also be mixing. It could also be inkjet. It could be all of these, but it would need software to enable and power precision detection. They could be combined, I believe. [of software and hardware] You can create magic. The key is waiting until the cost is right, and it’s effective and fast. But I think we’re probably going to see a lot of potential for that in beauty in the next five years. We’ll see how fast it comes.
WWD: There’s always something to look forward too. But for now, let’s wrap this up with a quick jaunt down memory lane. You’ve created so many different gadgets, apps and even mechanical machines across beauty. Which one do you prefer?
B.G.: Oh my god, it’s like asking me for my favorite child.
WWD: It’s hard to believe, but one must have stood out.
B.G.: Do you know what? You know what? I won’t forget Makeup Genius. [a virtual try-on app launched in 2014 that offered digital makeovers in stores using a live selfie view. At the time, other options typically used static photos].
It was the first time that technology was available in beauty, and it was my favourite innovation. In reality, AR was not used in real time in the beauty industry. But it solved a real need, which is that people didn’t want to physically try on products, [feeling that] They had to purchase it. Now, what makes me proud is that it penetrated the market — not just for L’Oréal, but pretty much every makeup brand today has some level of virtual try-on. This was possible because of our work. I’ve had lots of challenges in my career, but that was something we’re really proud of, not just because of the impact it made for our consumers, but for the industry in general. That’s one I’ll never forget. Maybe it’s the combination of timing, the magic of how it worked and the fact that it actually scaled that makes me really proud of the tech.
But the rest…I mean, I have to say that, like, with My Skin Track UV helping people with melanoma, and others, all of those have special places in my heart. I love the new Hapta device. For me, beauty is about all of us, creating beauty that moves people around the world and also having emotional attachments.
Makeup Genius can do all these things for you.