South Korea skin care device demand drives innovation
In Asia, massage has been traditionally deep rooted in beauty routines which has given modern day cosmetic players food for thought when developing new age skin care devices for local markets.
Electronic massagers and exfoliators are already a big hit however, 'Way's' new digital tool aims to reveal those less obvious conditions of the skin via three different sensors.
One measures the UV index, another humidity, while a bioelectrical impedance analysis sensor determines moisture content and oil levels.
A graph then displays either a good, normal, or bad rating and even tracks water intake to see how those changes affect the skin before giving personalized beauty tips.
The South Korea start-up even has plans to formulate its own skin care range based on information the devises gather from individual consumers.
“Our next mission is to introduce Korean skin care products that are customized to a user's unique skin profile," says CEO Jason Moon.
From scanning devices to wearable skin care technology
Only recently, L’Oréal demonstrated how a wearable device could have a big future in dermatology for thermal evaluations in a non-invasive manner.
By wearing a band aid-like device, the international cosmetics player says companies can find out the condition of the skin at certain points and develop products that specifically target certain issues.
“Developments in wireless technology will provide a path to continuous monitoring of skin properties and function using these concepts,” says the research team.
L'Oreal's study with the help of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Tampere measured the relationships between skin hydration and in vivo thermal properties shown across six body locations (cheek, dorsal and volar forearm, wrist, palm and heel pad) on 25 subjects.
This was done using an ‘ultrathin’ device, or epidermal thermal sensing array, which is a silicon wafer coated in a transparent thermoplastic and containing miniature structures to make the various measurements.
“The device and data presented here provide a foundational step for a new approach to the measurement of in vivo skin thermal properties, as well as new statistical data about the correlations between skin thermal transport properties, and skin hydration and structural makeup.