Panasonic Mirror Uses Facial Recognition to Recommend Beauty Products

Panasonic is teaming up with the KOSÉ Corporation in an effort to provide shoppers with more personalized make-up recommendations. The joint initiative will leverage Panasonic’s Snow Beauty Mirror, a new device that uses facial recognition and image recognition tech to analyze a customer’s skin and suggest KOSÉ beauty products based on the results.

The Snow Beauty Mirror is still in development, and will first be deployed at a new Maison KOSÉ location that is set to open on December 17. Customers who sit in front of the mirror will receive a skin profile backed with numerical data in a matter of seconds. The contactless sensors will spot any wrinkles, lines, and pores, and measure skin tone and the general condition of the person’s skin. The profile will also dig beneath the surface and reveal hidden spots that can’t be seen with the naked eye.  

Once the analysis is complete, the system will use an algorithm to generate hundreds of thousands of facial images that represent different versions of the customer’s “ideal face,” which essentially means that the Snow Beauty Mirror will show them what their face would look like without the pores, spots, and wrinkles uncovered during stage one. Once the shopper has selected their favorite image, the Snow Beauty Mirror will offer tips and direct them to KOSÉ products that will theoretically help make that image a reality.

The algorithm itself was developed by KOSÉ in collaboration with Meiji University. Panasonic, meanwhile, will also be piloting its Customized Make-Up Sheets. The technology is still in development and does not yet have an official name, but the goal is to print ultra-thin cosmetic sheets that match the customer’s skin tone. The sheets would then be applied to the face as a seamless form of cover-up.

The Mirror represents a new application of Panasonic’s facial recognition tech, which has previously been leveraged for access control at airports and soccer stadiums. However, it is not the only company exploring facial recognition in the cosmetics industry. Mira recently released a beauty-oriented search engine, while CyberLink just announced the winners of its second annual AI Meets Beauty retail challenge.

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December 6, 2019 – by Eric Weiss