From First Impression to Next Step: RCS, 3D Hair and Personalised Skincare

A client sees a skin score on their phone, brings a hairstyle reference to a salon, or opens a message after an appointment. Beauty technology is starting to shape all three moments. This week, four stories about what happens between the first impression and the next useful step. I'm Mike, and this is Beauty Tech Weekly. We have richer messages from Peter Thomas Roth, research that reconstructs hair in three dimensions, skin analysis inside Qoo10, and a machine that makes personalised cosmetics. My question throughout: what does each of these actually help a client or a beauty business do? First, the message after the visit.

On November tenth, Peter Thomas Roth and Listrak shared results from their use of RCS messaging. Think of a branded message with product images and buttons inside the phone's messaging app. The news is this retailer's reported experience, rather than the invention of a new messaging channel. Listrak reports an average forty percent higher conversion rate in fifty-fifty tests against SMS. That is a relative uplift, not forty percentage points. The release does not provide the absolute conversion rates or sample sizes. It is an interesting vendor-reported result, but it is not a forecast for a salon's own campaigns. For me, the useful question is what the richer message makes easier. A customer should be able to understand the offer and choose a next step without working through a wall of text. A beautiful card still needs a reason to arrive. A reminder, a relevant answer and a generic promotion are different experiences. In a salon, the question often comes after the visit. A client opens a product at home and remembers something they forgot to ask. At AI Beauty Bot, we help salons stay in touch with clients in those moments. That is the connection I care about here: making it easier to continue the conversation between appointments. If I were evaluating this for a business, I would start with one specific customer moment and one useful action. Then I would compare it with the current message, using the same audience and offer. I would also look at opt-outs and replies. More purchases alone would not tell me whether the communication was welcome. Next, a different kind of communication problem: showing someone the haircut you have in mind.

SAFE-Hair is a research project whose paper was submitted on November ninth. It reconstructs editable three-dimensional hair strands from a single portrait. The authors show the input image alongside reconstructed views from the front, side and back. There is an important distinction in those images. The camera only captured one view. Parts of the hairstyle that were hidden have to be inferred. A convincing view of the back does not mean the system observed the back. The result is a reconstruction, rather than a complete measurement of that person's hair. The work is aimed at editable digital hair and graphics workflows. The public repository lists code and model releases as future work. So I would treat this as a research demonstration, not a salon tool you can install today. It also does not establish whether a real client's hair can achieve the pictured style. What interests me is a possible use in consultation. A single reference photo leaves plenty to discuss: the silhouette from the side, the length at the back, and which details the client actually likes. A three-dimensional reference could make that conversation more specific, provided everybody understands which parts were inferred. I would want the interface to keep the original photo visible and clearly mark the reconstructed views. Then the professional can ask better questions and explain what is realistic for this client. The value would be a clearer shared expectation. A polished simulation, on its own, would not be a promise of the finished haircut. Our third story moves the consultation into a shopping app.

On November ninth, Perfect Corp announced that its skin-analysis technology was available on Qoo10 Japan. Shoppers use a phone camera and receive a report linked to product recommendations. The same announcement covers colour-contact-lens try-on, which has already been available since August. The system checks the capture conditions and reports on ten skin concerns. Those scores are presented in a shopping context. I would be careful about treating a score as a diagnosis, or a repeatable measurement as proof that a product recommendation is right for a particular person. Those are separate questions. For salons, I think the interesting scenario is a client arriving with a screenshot. They may already have a score, a product shortlist and a strong impression of what their skin needs. That gives the professional a starting point: what was photographed, under what conditions, and what does the client actually want to change? There is also a relevant piece of context. On November twelfth, Qoo10 published a notice about a security incident and personal-information leakage. That notice's existence does not establish a connection with this skin-analysis feature. I am keeping those facts separate. It does make data handling a sensible question to ask of any photo-based service. Before introducing a similar experience, I would want clear answers about what images are retained, who can access them, and how a customer can have them deleted. I would also want to understand how recommendations are selected. A useful consultation should help a person understand the result, including what the system cannot tell them. Finally, from a recommendation to a physical product.

Lillycover's ENIMA Light won the Home and Professional Devices and Tools category at the Cosmoprof Asia Awards this week. This is an award story about an existing system, rather than a claim that the machine launched for the first time this week. The award description connects measurements from Lillycover's Muilli device with SkinDia software and the ENIMA Light manufacturing system. The idea is to turn a customer's skin information into a personalised formula, then make the skincare product on site. The company describes production in around four minutes, and profiles can be saved for reordering. That production time is only one part of the appointment. For a salon, I would also count the consultation, preparation, cleaning and handover. The useful number is the time and cost of delivering the whole service. I would want to see that workflow with real staff before building a service menu around it. My next questions would be practical. What do refills cost? How are ingredients stored and tracked? What training does the team need? What happens if the machine is unavailable when a client returns? An award makes this worth investigating. It does not answer the operating questions for an individual business. The part I find most interesting is continuity. If a customer likes the product, can the business explain what was made and manage the next order reliably? Personalisation should be understandable to the client and manageable for the team. The experience after the first bottle matters as much as the moment it comes out of the machine. Across these four stories, I see the same practical test.

Does the technology make the next conversation clearer? Richer messages can offer a useful next step. Hair reconstruction can give people more to discuss. A skin report can open questions. On-site production can create a continuing service. Each still needs an honest explanation of its limits. Which of these would be most useful in your business: better follow-up, a clearer hairstyle reference, help interpreting a skin report, or personalised products on site? Let me know. I'm Mike, and this was Beauty Tech Weekly. See you next week.