The personal care sector is implementing immersive technologies. This includes augmented and virtual reality to offer personalised experiences and more. Of late, virtual makeup try-on services using augmented reality have been gaining traction to an extent where beauty techs are leveraging them to improve personal care experiences. 

In addition to this, VR-powered virtual stores are simplifying the shopping experience. New technologies are changing how brands present their products. 

The e-commerce sales climbed by 32.1% from Q4 2019 to Q4 2020, from $156.39 billion to $206.66 billion. By 2023, there will be $6.51 trillion in online retail sales, with e-commerce sites accounting for 22.3% of this total. In the new beauty and fashion retail era, AI and AR technologies have fast become indispensable tools for customer interactions. Looking ahead to 2023 and beyond, we can see that as the world embraces web 3.0 and the metaverse, AI and AR technology will continue to play a significant role in retail experiences.

Here are seven important personal care tech innovations of 2022! 

YSL Beauté Rouge Sur Mesure by L’Oréal

YSL Beauté Rouge Sur Mesure by L’Oréal works by pairing the device to your smartphone and uses colour cartridges in swappable palettes of red, nude, orange, and pink. Each tube has a unique NFC tag used to develop thousands of customised shades efficiently. Buying all four would give you up to 4,000 shades since each colour palette may generate up to 1,000 variations. The device blends the colour, but you can even virtually try it before that. At the top of the device, moisturising made-on-demand personalised lipstick with pigment emerges into a stylish, detachable YSL palette. 

Dr Harris Anti-Wrinkle Sleep Mask by CurrentBody

Currentbody’s anti-wrinkle sleep mask by Dr Steven Harris is lined with silicone dots. It works by stimulating mechanoreceptors, the touch receptors in the skin.  When you wear the mask, the silicone dots are pressed against your skin, preventing you from creasing your glabellar muscles. Instead, they are positioned to target a specific kind of mechanoreceptor linked to the parasympathetic nervous system. This mask triggers emotional and muscular relaxation, slowing the growth of fine lines and wrinkles.

Colour Alchemy by The Unseen and Schwarzkopf Professional

Beauty tech The Unseen and cosmetics giant Schwarzkopf Professional partnered to create the world’s first prismatic, holographic hair dye reactive to temperature—Colour Alchemy. It is a temporary colour that turns hair strands into light-scattering prisms through structural colouration—the same principle that gives butterfly wings iridescent hues using cellular shape instead of actual pigment. The result is hair that shifts across a spectrum of vibrant colours when exposed to changes in temperature or light. Colour Alchemy shows up on dark tresses without any bleaching. Dark hair provides the best base for its sun-scattering holographic crystals.

Super Stay Vinyl Ink Longwear Liquid Lipcolor by Maybelline

L’Oréal-owned Maybelline’s new product, Vinyl Ink, guarantees 16 hours of smudge-free application. Its dual-phase composition blends a long-wear pigment with an emollient silicone resin for moisture and shine. The user shakes the tube to combine the two ingredients during the application, which is done to copy the trick protein shaker bottles utilised to blend powder and water on the go.

Theraface PRO by Therabody

US wellness tech firm Therabody’s TheraFace Pro‘s magnetic attachments offer hot and cold compresses, microcurrent treatments, deep facial cleaning, multi-hued LED light therapy, and the brand’s signature percussive massage, which is appropriately toned down for the fragile bones of the face. The TheraFace microcurrent attachment, like the NuFace toning device, is meant to contour the features of the face using two rounded nubs that release electric currents to create collagen in the dermis. 

Droplette Micro-Infuser

Created by MIT-trained scientists Madhavi Gavini and Rathi Srinivas, and backed by NASA, Droplette Micro-Infuser is the skin-misting tool that pushes active ingredients deeper into your skin for better efficacy. It breaks serums into tiny droplets and converts them into an aerosol and high-velocity spray to penetrate the skin 20 times deeper—keeping it moisturised and hydrated. 

Halo Hair dryer by Zuvi

Hair is more prone to breakages when wet, so diffusing—spreading and softening the airflow from a hair dryer—on a lower heat is a better approach. Chinese company Zuvi’s Halo Hair Dryer dries the user’s hair surface while preserving the moisture in the hair shaft because of their in-house exclusive LightCare technology. Zuvi claims to boost the hair’s internal moisture by 109%—giving it smoother, shinier, and more colour-retaining properties.