Accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, beauty tech innovation has taken beauty centre stage.
And interest in beauty technology will still grow in 2022, with advancements ranging from DIY tools to high-tech hydrafacials, micro peels, and even cryotherapy.
This article explains the future of the beauty tech industry, some trends that will rise and the top innovative startups for 2022.
The Beauty Tech Industry In 2022
The beauty industry is one of the biggest industries in the world. It continues to grow and evolve, mirroring the latest trends.
However, with the Covid-19 pandemic hitting the global beauty industry hard, businesses were forced to close for months at a time. Even prestige cosmetic and fragrance brands suffered a substantial drop in sales, ranging from 55% to 75%.
But the crisis also kickstarted a new era of digital transformation and innovation.
With the help of technology, the industry has been in recovery this year, experiencing a boom period of growth in the years before the crisis, enabling the beauty industry to embrace the change and become the beauty-tech industry.
Here are some trends to expect in 2022:
- Virtual Try-on
Virtual try-on has sparked much curiosity over time and topped the charts in 2020 in terms of google searches. It detects your lips, eyes, cheeks, and other facial features and applies virtual cosmetics to that area.
Virtual try-on is used for various reasons: inexpensive, reliable to test a product when you can’t physically go to stores, sustainability, curiosity, and more.
- Smart Sampling
Virtual try-on solutions and samples are created and provided depending on the target audience’s demands.
- Packaging scanners
Packaging scanners to check the cosmetics’ ingredients, as consumers place a high value on sustainability and transparency.
Here Are The Top Innovative Beauty Tech Startups In the UK This 2022:
1. Odore
Founded in 2018 by Armaan Mehta and Karan Gupta, Odore enables the world’s leading brands to sample their products more effectively. It intends to transform the clumsy, old-fashioned way beauty brands distribute products into a digitised, personalised, measurable part of their marketing strategies.
Odore claims it can track the effect of actual samples, whereas a typical sample might be picked up from a cosmetics counter with the brand never knowing whether the buyer liked it.
Odore has developed an e-sampling platform that allows businesses to target the correct demographic with their samples, assess their effect, and launch hyper-personalised campaigns. It also has an intelligent sampling device installed in retail stores that asks customers questions and gives them samples tailored to their preferences.
2. Beauty Stack
When we go to our hairdresser or beauty technician, we will show them an Instagram photo hoping they will recreate it on us. However, it mostly ends up in dissatisfaction.
Beauty Stack aims to change that by allowing people to discover and schedule beauty styles directly with the professionals who created them. Founded in 2017 by Sharmadean Reid, it comes with a built-in booking system, which streamlines the entire process from discovery to payment.
And although many businesses offer the same functions, what makes Beauty Stack unique is that it has Instagram’s visual discovery and community vibe. Beauty Stack Strives to bring the best of it together.
3. LeSalon
LeSalon created the 21st-century beauty salon: on-demand, consistent, and high-quality service delivered to your location at a time and date that is convenient for you.
Founded by Jean-Michel Chalayer, Nabil Freeman, and Natasha Pilbrow in 2018, LeSalon provides manicures, pedicures, hair removal, and eyelash extensions in London zones 1 to 5, rapidly expanding its service verticals and geographic reach.
LeSalon’s mission is to revolutionise how you get beauty treatments. Rather than calling every salon on the high street to find a time slot that works for you, LeSalon has developed an easy-to-use app that allows you to browse all available hours in your area, choose your therapist, and pay online. Their therapists come to you, which saves you time commuting and waiting.
But, unlike a booking site where you take your chances with a variety of quality and price options, LeSalon has standardised the service and automated the booking process with their unique booking algorithm (average matching time: 2 minutes).
Every therapist who joins the platform is also subjected to a comprehensive background check. This assures a consistently high-quality service, with more than 95% of treatments receiving a 5-star rating and press recognition.
4. Exoditi
Founded by Lisa Baugh and Jamie Baugh, Exoditi aims to become a well-known and trusted brand known for differentiated products, excellent and irresistible gifting and a unique fragrance portfolio with revolutionary beauty tech.
Through their online-focused boutique, Exoditi introduces new methods for consumers to interact with and enjoy the fragrance. Customers are treated to a high-end shopping experience, including fragrance profiling sessions.
By integrating precisely selected oils proven to enhance well-being, each of Exoditi’s smells intends to tell a story, improve clients’ mental health, and elevate emotions. What makes it different from others is that each perfume was created to adapt to the wearer’s skin and environment, improving their well-being and motivation while remaining accessible to everybody. They employ natural materials and minimise artificial components in their goods, resulting in a 100% sustainable, plastic-free, and environmentally friendly brand.
5. Beauty Pie
Beauty Pie, a subscription-based beauty company, was founded by Marcia Kilgore in 2018. It curates skincare, makeup, and body products directly from suppliers, allowing for reduced prices. It also doesn’t test its effects on animals but on willing humans and attempts to avoid utilising animal derivatives wherever feasible.
Recently, Beauty Pie has raised $100 million in funding, which it will use to expand into new categories and target users through a broader range of sales channels and infrastructure to source and sell its “basics”-styled goods.
Beauty Pie’s business model sources and purchases high-end products from various manufacturers, selling them under its private label. This allows Beauty Pie to sell products that compete with the best on the market while undercutting high-end brands.
6. AGORA
AGORA, founded by Emma Watkins, allows beauty fans to monetise their skills by making and sharing video content that links to purchases from their favourite brands.
On the AGORA beauty app, you can create videos about any makeup, skincare and wellness product for everyone to enjoy. All the videos are shoppable, making it simple to share, discover, and buy anything in one place. AGORA offers exclusive deals and, in time, aims to become the largest online shopping mall for beauty brands in Europe.
7. Magnitone London
Founded in 2013 by David Randall, Magnitone London provides cleansing brush technology that deep-cleanses pores, toning and conditioning skin. Its mission is to energise and condition skin naturally, create quality devices at affordable prices, and make #NoFilterSkincare accessible.
8. Curate Beauty
With a see-now-buy-now marketplace, Curate Beauty promotes wholesale. It simplifies the process for retailers by allowing them to discover the best in independent beauty brands and shop from them all in one place at wholesale prices.
And what makes it different from other platforms is that it also allows independently held brands to connect with new stockists, increasing brand exposure and sales.
9. Birchbox
Birchbox is a discovery commerce platform founded in 2010 by Hayley Barna and Katia Beauchamp that is revolutionising the retail process by providing consumers with a personalised approach to find, sample, shop, and learn about the most excellent products and brands available. Every month, Birchbox subscribers get first-hand product experiences with products and educational content to help them get the most out of their products.
Birchbox has revolutionised how people shop for beauty and grooming by combining a monthly delivery of customised samples with original content and a full e-commerce shop.
Birchbox collaborates with the greatest brands in the industry, ranging from popular favourites to niche up-and-comers, and employs a proprietary algorithm to deliver the appropriate products to the correct individuals based on their profiles and tastes. It also offers its subscribers tips, videos, reviews, and a substantial reward program.
10. Fresha
Fresha, founded by Nick Miller and William Zeqiri in 2015, develops beauty and hair salon software with online booking, payment processing, and marketing features.
Fresha’s ecosystem helps merchants operate their businesses more smoothly by facilitating appointment bookings, point-of-sale, customer records management, marketing automation, and more.
Fresha also offers retail management, allowing users to manage POS transactions, invoicing, receipts and taxes. Other features of Fresha include appointment preferences, appointment histories, contact details and future bookings.
11. Gallinée
Gallinée is a revolutionary new skin and body care line that protects the skin’s beneficial microorganisms. It was launched in 2016.
Gallinée offers products that contain an extraordinary mix of prebiotics, probiotics, and lactic acid to promote and nourish the skin’s healthy bacteria and allow them to live in harmony. These products are a superior choice for health since they deliver actual results for brighter, softer, and healthier skin.
Gallinée is unique because it’s the first brand to care for your microbiome from head to toe. Gallinée believes that skincare should always work with, not against, your skin. Their products have a physiological pH, are dermatologically tested, and are vegan.
12. blow LTD
Founded by Fiona McIntosh in 2013, blow LTD is the UK’s leading on-demand beauty business, making lives easier with beauty services delivered at a time and place that suits you.
What makes blow LTD’s team of over 1000 beauty professionals is that they’ve been hand-picked, and vetted. And also tested, ensuring you’re in the best and safest hands possible.
They’re also supporting a primarily female team of highly skilled beauty professionals. By giving them more money and freedom to schedule work around their busy schedules and families.
13. FRUU
FRUU is a cosmetics company specialising in turning fruit by-products into sustainable cosmetics. At the same time, it is different from other brands. Because most cosmetics are made from unsustainable petrochemicals and water, land, or carbon-intensive natural materials.
Terence Chung and Kelly Yee founded FRUU in 2015 to change how we think about our resources. And make sustainability a more accessible lifestyle. They make no compromises when it comes to sourcing the finest products possible. And to ensure their products are as fresh as possible, they create them in small batches in their UK facility.
14. Bulldog Skincare For Men
Bulldog Skincare For Men creates award-winning skincare products with natural ingredients designed specifically for men. They blend natural ingredients like camelina, green tea, and aloe vera with carefully chosen. And also artificial elements to provide excellent performance at a low price.
Summary
The beauty industry will continue adapting, from cutting-edge technology and revolutionising everything from individualised skincare to virtual try-on.
And if you want to know more about these beauty techs and their trends, consider talking to someone from our team.
Rest assured that someone will contact you to answer all your questions.
