L’Oréal and ModiFace — Building the Future of Beauty
To get an edge in beauty tech and further embrace the golden age of ‘connected beauty innovation’ through digitized services, we at L’Oréal bring together the most brilliant engineering and science minds to transform the future of beauty.
With the recent acquisition of ModiFace, a Canadian tech company specializing in augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI), we plan to reinvent the beauty experience around innovative services to help you discover, try and chose products and brands. This is a great opportunity to bring together the world-class teams of ModiFace and L’Oréal brightest engineers, researchers, and scientists who will be part of L’Oréal’s Digital Services Factory, a dedicated network to design and develop new digital services for the L’Oréal group’s brands, and benefitting from an unrivaled century-old expertise in beauty.
What’s the story of ModiFace and how we plan to create the AR/AI-enabled beauty future TOGETHER? Learn more about the man who is recognized as an inspirational game changer within and beyond L’Oréal, Parham Aarabi, the founder of ModiFace, who together with his team has developed advanced technologies of 3D virtual make-up, color, and skin diagnosis services using proprietary tech that tracks facial features and color.
What’s your story, Parham?
The short version is that I did my Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at Stanford in 2001, have been a Professor of Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto since 2001, and in 2007 started a beauty tech company called ModiFace which has emerged as the leading beauty tech company globally, with a particular focus on beauty augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI).
Tell us one thing about yourself that we cannot find on your CV?
The only thing would be that I am allergic to inefficiency and bureaucracy, and love when taking the most efficient route towards goals.
What do beauty and tech have in common?
The appetite for experimentation and the motivation to succeed.
Your background is in Electrical/ Computer Engineering! Is there anything that surprised you about the beauty industry that you were not aware of before?
Many things, but the biggest factor was how exciting it was to combine beauty and tech and explore territory that was uncharted before.
What’s been your proudest achievement so far?
The team at ModiFace. They are more than friends to me, more than family. It is hard to describe, but it is my proudest achievement and biggest honor of my life to work alongside the incredible team that we have assembled.
How did you turn the “augmented” into reality? Can you walk us through the journey of how ModiFace came to life?
We knew from day 1 that trying on products and seeing their effects was useful. What we didn’t know was regarding how to achieve it. It took time — almost 7 years in fact — with gradual improvement of our technology to get to a point where AR was actually believable and realistic. But it was not a one shot even: it was — and still is — a constant race in which we need to run as fast as possible.
ModiFace Mirror was selected by CEW as a “CES Best In Beauty”! What were the first thoughts running through your mind that very moment?
We were very excited by the selection. But perhaps the exact thought in my head that very moment was
“Oh my goodness, what are we now going to do at the next CES to beat this?!”
Has it been an overnight success?
Most definitely not. It was a constant race filled with failures, successes, lessons learned, and luck.
How do you see L’Oréal — a 100 year old corporation — transforming the future of Beauty?
L’Oréal with its size, amazing team, and visionary leadership are in the best position to transform the beauty industry.
The motivation for success, openness for experimentation, and drive for innovation are a deep part of the L’Oréal DNA, and this alone will be a major factor for revolutionizing the entire industry.
What’s the most exciting part about the recent ModiFace acquisition by L’Oréal?
There are many exciting elements, but the most important and most exciting part is gaining amazing new colleagues from whom we can learn a great deal. For example, we have already begun a major collaboration with the L’Oréal Research & Innovation team — the fruits of which everyone will see shortly.
Most importantly, we are extremely excited to work alongside the amazing Digital team at L’Oréal who provide us with much needed guidance and vision that will be essential during the forthcoming beauty tech revolution.
What similarities do you see between the culture in ModiFace and L’Oréal?
Both organizations are defined primarily by their teams, and the deep connections between the team members. Both L’Oréal and ModiFace are focused on winning, on experimenting, on innovating, and on learning.
The alignment of the two groups will unlock the kind of vitality and creativity that the beauty industry has never seen and I couldn’t be any more excited for what is to come!
What is the greatest lesson you’ve learned as an entrepreneur?
Be fully comfortable with failure, but be persistent as heck for success.
What was the best piece of advice you ever got? The worst?
Best advice: Focus on one thing and do it better than anyone.
Worst advice: Do a bit of everything.
If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be?
Observe everything, and everyone, but only talk the minimum amount needed.
Excited to join a global community of 82 600 brilliant minds creating the future of beauty through digital innovation? By joining a #weareloreal tribe of collaboration, idea exchange and growth, you are empowered to achieve more than you thought you are capable of across L’Oréal 34 international brands and 4 different divsions.
If you are eager to join our passionate teams coming together from every facet of the industry, this might be the sign (article) you have been waiting for.
