Virtual beauty: L’Oréal teams up with Tencent to debut ModiFace in China

“The debut of ModiFace's 3D makeup try-on application on China’s social media, is L’Oréal China’s new milestone under the Group’s vision to be a champion of beauty-tech,” ​said Fabrice Megarbane, CEO of L’Oréal China.

The AR application on the updated Giorgio Armani Beauty mini program will allow consumers to screenshot, save and share images as well as view before and after images to elevate the consumer shopping experience on the app.

The company believes its technology “breaks through the limitations of existing applications in terms of detail, accuracy, loading time and colour deviation”, ​allowing it to compete with smart mirrors with similar tech seen in offline retail stores.

China expansion​

Parham Aarabi, CEO of ModiFace, said it was important for Modiface to strengthen its presence in China and plans to secure more partnerships in the Chinese beauty market.

“China has the world's largest community of digital natives and the most dynamic tech innovation ecosystem. At the same time, we also look​ forward to expanding partnership with more Chinese innovators to create ‘heartfelt’ beauty tech that pleases consumers around the world and in China.”​

Megarbane agreed: “In China, everyone is longing for unique and personalised beauty. This is the biggest differentiator of Chinese consumers. With WeChat's active social network of more than 1.1 billion monthly active people and ModiFace's innovative technology, we can integrate beauty more deeply into the lives of more Chinese consumers and help put their dream for customized and unique beauty into reality.”​

Previously, L’Oréal and Tencent have worked on a number of collaborative projects in the areas of smart retail, digital marketing, and social e-commerce.

Being able to support AR applications, said Tencent, opens up more opportunities for it to offer the same service to other brand partners on its mini program. Currently, WeChat’s mini program has more than 200 million users daily.

“Our extension to AR demonstrates Mini Program’s strong capabilities to apply cutting-edge technologies, and its broader potential to support growth of various sectors,” ​said Sean Yu, head of retail industry application, WeChat open platform, Tencent.

“We are looking forward to expanding collaboration with more partners like L’Oréal, supporting brands and service providers to diversify their engagement approaches, and giving full play to the potential of tech to bring better life to all people.”​

More on ModiFace

ModiFace was acquired by L’Oréal in March last year as the cosmetic firm’s first technology company.

To date, ModiFace is operating in over 30 countries and has registered more than 30 patents.

Earlier this year, it partnered with A.S.Watson to launch its virtual make-up testing service, #ColourMe on the retailer’s Watson mobile e-commerce application.

Through Watsons, ModiFace’s tech is available to consumers across Asia, including Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

According to the company, it currently serves more than a million beauty consumers daily through social media and retail platform including Facebook, YouTube, Sephora, Watsons and Amazon.