Mirrori

Mirrori was founded in 2019 with the vision of reinventing the way women consume beauty products and cosmetics. Women worldwide invest tremendous resources in cosmetics and personal care. Throughout her life, the average American woman spends tens of thousands of dollars on makeup products and four months applying makeup.

The global cosmetics and beauty market is a huge market estimated at hundreds of billions of dollars as of 2019, and it is expected to grow dramatically over the next five years. The CAGR of cosmetics is considered to be one of the highest among consumer products markets – almost double the CAGR of the clothing market, for example.

However, the makeup and cosmetics market requires unique knowledge and experience, and navigating it can be extremely complex and challenging for most women. Therefore, many women are confused and search for different ways to receive assistance and guidance through the beauty customer journey.

• Pre-purchase: 70% of beauty consumers in the U.S. are overwhelmed by the endless selection, and seek different solutions for advice. However, these recommendations are not customized for each individual user.
• During-purchase: 63% of consumers are confused by the claims of beauty brands. 50% of consumers have reported that they will definitely or probably use a digital makeup assistant during purchase, whether online or in-store. However, the assistance women receive in stores, even if it can be personal, is designated for a specific need or product and it is usually affected by marketing considerations.
• Post-purchase: Many women report that they lack the assistance and the guidance needed for proper usage of the care and cosmetics products they have, thus causing many women to seek tutorials. However, in most cases, these tutorials do not fit their facial characteristics and the beauty products they own. A consumer survey has demonstrated that an average American woman uses only five products out of an average collection of 40 products.

Beyond the pain points during the beauty customer journey, the Covid-19 crisis has also fueled the demand by women to acquire practical knowledge that allows them to apply makeup and maintain their skincare routines at home. The tendency of consumers to reduce physical contact with service providers is expected to continue beyond the end of the crisis. Therefore, distance beauty consulting, a need that has increased during Covid-19, fully co-exists with the needs we have already identified and for which we develop cutting-edge technological technologies.

The Solution

In order to address these tremendous and growing pain points, Mirrori has developed a cutting-edge platform that will change the way women consume beauty products. We provide a holistic solution, starting with their post-purchase needs.

Post-purchase: Mirrori provides tailor-made beauty recommendations for individual women. Based on the user's request, her facial features, her products, and her personal preference, the platform will suggest various professional makeup looks, including an illustration over her face. After choosing her preferred look, the user will receive a personal tutorial on how to achieve that look using her products.

Additionally, the platform will allow the user to analyze and track changes in her skin condition and receive recommendations for her daily skincare routine based on the products she already has and the challenges she should focus on.

Following an analysis of the user's profile and an established relationship with her, the platform will meet her needs in other stages of the beauty customer journey.

Pre-purchase: The platform will recommend makeup products to upgrade the chosen makeup styles. Moreover, the platform will recommend care products to meet certain challenges it may have recognized. Through tracking, it can determine when these challenges are not taken care of or if the existing products are non-effective.

During-purchase: The user will receive objective recommendations for makeup products, without any bias or tendency towards a certain product. For every product suggested, alternatives from different brands and price ranges with similar and sufficient levels of functionality will be offered. 

The Technology

The smart AI-based beauty consulting platform is based on a combination of three core technologies:

• Recognition technology: This component includes advanced AI models for face segmentation (including specific features that are relevant to makeup recommendations) and tracking the skin condition throughout time. The engine also contains NLP and data mining for product characterization according to their features and usage.
• Recommendation technology: This component receives all the analyzed and “tagged” information of the user, analyzes it through advanced AI models combined with human wisdom, and then provides personalized beauty recommendations for each user.
• Illustration technology: This component contains cutting-edge photo-realistic rendering technologies that enable illustrating various makeup styles over the face of the user in a realistic way. The company is also developing a first-of-its kind technology in which a user can watch herself applying makeup in a tutorial. Using this technology, the user and the makeup artist's faces will be switched using generative models that are based on neural networks.

Cutting-edge technological innovation

Based on Mirrori's core technology, a user can create an illustration of unlimited makeup styles over a selfie taken with a mobile phone. Unlike existing solutions in the market and in research, our unique algorithm works based on makeup pictures only (without any manual manipulation); supports makeup styles that were not seen previously; copies the makeup in an accurate manner over the entire face, including eyelashes, eyebrows, and the epicanthic fold; creates realistic facial images; maintains the identity of the user; and operates on the highest resolution possible among the existing methods.

The most advanced technological solutions in the field of makeup consulting and illustration over the face of the user use AR-based technologies, using filters placed on the face of the user. AR technology is based on an initial stage of locating predefined spots on the user’s face and creating a 3D model of them. Afterwards, the artificial masks are stretched and placed on the face of the user.  

The makeup transfer technology of Mirrori is based on deep learning. When trained with over dozens of thousands of pictures, the algorithm learns how to change the picture without makeup, pixel by pixel, so it will look as similar as possible to the picture of a makeup artist, while maintaining the identity of the user.

The technological innovation at the basis of this ability to copy makeup from one picture to another, is characterized in several aspects when compared to other solutions:

• Automation – Mirrori’s technology enables the creation of filters for makeup transfer of different makeup styles, automatically and based on our model, and without any manual intervention.
• Realism – Unlike AR, Mirrori’s technology is based on realistic makeup layers. There is a built-in need during training to reach a high level of realism, which allows the user to have a better sense of the final outcome.
• Accuracy – Mirrori’s algorithm learns to change the picture directly, with no need to find all the spots in the face. While maintaining a realistic picture, it allows for a better treatment of cases that AR cannot handle.

Therefore, compared to other technological solutions which are based on deep learning, Mirrori’s results in makeup transfer are significantly better.

Technology’s results compared to other technologies.

An incredibly large data set is among the key factors behind the company's technological development. The database created currently contains about 20,000 videos with a product tagging, technique, and rendering area, as well as tens of thousands of unique pictures. In addition, the company has created a unique database of tens of thousands of makeup products that can be compared using data mining and natural language processing models.

The commercial potential of this technology is tremendous. While makeup transfer ability belongs nowadays mainly to makeup brands and large companies, Mirrori’s technology makes this technology accessible for everyone. Every picture can automatically turn into a makeup filter which can be illustrated over the face of the user. The technological infrastructure and the unique database which has been built, and which keeps on growing, is enabling makeup reverse-engineering through images, turning it into the Shazam of makeup. 

Due to its advanced technological abilities, the company has already filed a patent to protect the makeup copying technology, which is currently being processed.

As part of Mirrori’s vision to provide personalized consulting, the company will continue to develop these abilities, while copying the makeup and simulating the process of makeup rendering on the face of the user. The company is developing a technology that can animate the user’s picture according to a video of an existing user. The method to animate the picture is based on copying motion into the picture and replacing the face with a picture. Such technology does not exist in the current market, and it depends primarily on the makeup transfer component.

Media

https://www.timesofisrael.com/beauty-app-checks-your-face-and-makeup-collection-dispenses-advice/