CES 2021: L’Oréal rolls out its innovations

Vincent Gallon avec ETX Studio

12 January 2021

CES 2021: L'Oréal rolls out its innovations

At this year’s virtual Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which started on Monday January 11, the global beauty giant presented the finalized forms of two recent innovations: the L’Oréal Water Saver technology, developed with the Swiss start-up Gjosa, and Yves Saint Laurent’s implementation of Perso.

L’Oréal has unveiled Yves Saint Laurent Beauté Rouge Sur Mesure Powered by Perso, an at-home system that represents the ultimate in lip colour personalization. Based on the technology originally developed by the L’Oréal Technology Incubator and presented at CES 2020. The device allows the user to create thousands of shades of the YSL Beauty Velvet Cream Matte Finish at home.

On demand lip shades

Using the Perso technology, consumers can create new lip shades within the corresponding app. They can, for instance, design a lipstick shade to match their outfit or opt for a colour that is trending on social media.

"There are four colour universes with three set of cartridges each, thus allowing to produce virtually almost all shades in each universe," Guive Balooch, Head of the L’Oréal Technology Incubator, told Premium Beauty News.

A limited pre-sale of the Yves Saint Laurent Beauté Rouge Sur Mesure device, priced at USD 299, is available on registration for early Spring 2021 U.S. delivery. The at-home system includes two colour cartridge sets from one of YSL’s iconic universes of red, nude, orange or fuchsia.

YSL Beauty Rouge Sur Mesure Powered by Perso will be available to consumers widely September 2021.

The Perso technology can also create custom formulas for skincare and foundation. These capabilities will launch later in 2021.

Reinventing haircare through green tech

Along with personalization, L’Oréal has also put technological innovation at the service of the environment. With its Water Saver, a technology developed with Swiss start-up Gjosa, the beauty giant wants to help consumers to reduce water consumption during hairwashing while enhancing the effectiveness of hair care.

First unveiled in 2018, this innovation has already been used in select hair salons in the US. Presented in its final version at the CES, it will soon head to France, followed by a global rollout.

The technology promises to not only make it possible to considerably reduce water consumption - by up to 80% - but also to reinvent the application of hair care products. The "high-powered water-optimizing technology" was directly combined with specially designed L’Oréal Professionnel and Kérastase products that flow directly into the water stream.

This would allow, among other things, to use only two litres of water per minute, compared to an average of eight litres per minute for a home shampoo at present.

Already available in a selection of salons in New York, L’Oréal Water Saver will arrive in some Parisian salons next February, before being deployed internationally between 2021 and 2022. Professionals should also benefit from a dashboard providing data on savings in water and energy consumption, and a history of the treatments used. Individuals won’t be left out since L’Oréal has announced that an at-home shower device "will be launched at a later date."

"Within the L’Oréal Technology Incubator, we investigate market gaps focusing on personalization and on enhanced product performance and sustainability," concludes Guive Balooch.