US – L’Oréal has presented Hapta at CES 2023, a smart beauty tool designed to help people with limited hand and arm mobility to steadily apply make-up.
For the millions of people living with limited motor skills, some daily actions such as applying make-up can be challenging. To make beauty routines more inclusive, L’Oréal partnered with health research company Verily to adapt Verily’s stabilising technology, originally used for adaptive cutlery and utensils, and incorporated it into the first smart hand-held make-up applicator.
Just as adaptive cutlery allows people with reduced mobility to eat independently, Hapta enables precise and steady lipstick application at home. ‘Beauty tech has enabled us to provide every woman with beauty solutions adapted to their needs. With Hapta, we are making beauty more accessible, because everyone should have equal access to it,’ says Françoise Lehmann, Lancôme's global brand president.
At LS:N Global, we have been looking at Adaptive Beauty since 2019, but Hapta’s technology is taking accessible cosmetics one step closer to wide-scale adoption. The levelling make-up device will be launched in 2023, paired with lipsticks from L’Oréal-owned brand Lancôme. The company plans to develop additional devices, with a mascara applicator already in the works.
Strategic opportunity
The number of available adaptive tech solutions does not reflect the size of the market. With Hapta, L’Oréal and Verily highlight how knowledge-sharing and brand collaboration can help companies develop the right tools to bring about small but incremental changes for people with impairments
