Thanks to new technology, African-American women and women who struggle to find perfect foundation shades will have a little help.
Beauty giant Sephora has teamed up with Pantone to launch a new free service called Sephora + Pantone Color IQ, a foundation-matching solution that debuts this month in NYC and on August 2 in San Francisco.
According to Time, the technology behind Color IQ is advanced, but the concept is simple: a handheld device allows Sephora makeup artists to digitally scan various spots on a customer’s face, resulting in 27 images in less than two seconds. The color capture technology then assigns each person a Pantone skin-tone number, which when entered into the coinciding iPad app, brings up a list of foundations — of the more than 1,000 Sephora sells — that are the closest match for the customer’s skin tone.
A 2009 Essence magazine study that Time quoted found that African-American women spend a staggering $7.5 billion on beauty products each year and black women spend 80% more than other women, in part, because they often need to try out more products to find the right colour match. This new service will make it much easier for women of colour to find the right makeup shades in the most cost-effective way.
If Sephora + Pantone Color IQ proves to be a hit, expect to see it roll out in more cities.
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