L’Oreal’s newest gadget takes the mess out of coloring your hair

When you won’t count on it, L’Oreal has been an everyday at CES these previous few years, launching every thing from wearable UV and pH sensors to an AI-powered skincare gadget. This 12 months, the firm is again with one more invention, the Colorsonic — a tool meant to make dying your hair at dwelling a hell of much more handy.

The Colorsonic doesn’t look too far off from different hair styling devices. The highest half has a nozzle with bristles, whereas the backside half shops a cartridge containing a “exact combine of developer and formulation.” The system works by dishing out the right amount of hair coloration after which the bristles oscillate over 300 occasions a minute at a particular angle to evenly apply the coloration. Principally, the thought behind the system is you possibly can merely flip it on, brush it by way of your hair, and get good coloration. (Although L’Oreal says these with darker hair colours will nonetheless have to bleach beforehand; the Colorsonic solely handles the coloration course of.)

In the event you’ve by no means given into the urge to dye your personal hair, let’s simply say there’s a purpose colorists exist. Talking from expertise, it’s a messy course of that may depart you with patchy hair coloration and cussed stains throughout your rest room. In the meantime, getting it achieved at the salon can simply find yourself costing a whole lot of {dollars}. If the Colorsonic can ship on the promise of straightforward at-home hair dying, that’s an enormous step ahead.

“It’s nearly been the similar for over a century,” says Guive Balooch, world vp of L’Oreal’s Know-how Incubator, referring to the historical past of hair dye. Whereas L’Oreal is presently the largest cosmetics firm in the world, it bought its begin when the founder developed the first industrial chemical hair dye. Nonetheless, the course of hasn’t modified a complete lot since then.

The Colorsonic contains specialised bristles and a replaceable hair coloration cartridge.

Picture: L’Oreal

In keeping with Balooch, the Colorsonic has been a number of years in the making — with 4 to 5 of these spent on making the oxidative formulation suitable with the system itself. Balooch says the Colorsonic was examined on over 400 individuals in the US and internationally, all with totally different hair varieties and lengths. The system additionally gained’t be restricted in coloration selections and the plan is to incorporate “daring” colours as properly, with extra being added over time. As an added bonus, L’Oreal says every cartridge makes use of 54 % much less plastic than typical at-home dye kits.

The Coloright system is already in some salons in France.

Picture: L’Oreal

Whereas that’s the shopper aspect of issues, L’Oreal can be planning on including a brand new Coloright system to salons. The Coloright system seems like a high-tech sales space and features a digital try-on for 1,500 shades, in addition to a hair evaluation the place you possibly can measure the coloration of your hair and its porosity. Salon-goers would then be capable to create a profile inside the Coloright system to allow them to then get the proper hair coloration at any collaborating salon.

“The salon is about not having to be afraid once I transfer to the U.S. from France and I would like my hair coloration to be the right combination,” Balooch says.

As for when the Colorsonic and Coloright can be accessible, L’Oreal sometimes publicizes its merchandise a 12 months prematurely. Coloright is already in some salons in France and is deliberate to have a full-scale launch towards the finish of 2022 or early 2023. In the meantime, Colorsonic will launch beneath the L’Oreal Paris model. Pricing remains to be in the works, and cartridges can be offered individually. Nonetheless, Balooch says it is going to be an “accessible product, one thing you possibly can purchase at a Goal.” It’ll first launch in smaller take a look at batches at the finish of 2022, with a large-scale launch in early 2023.