L'Oréal hopes its latest beauty gadget can reveal the secrets of skin care. At CES 2025, the company announced Cell BioPrint, a device designed to analyze your skin and give personalized advice on how to slow the signs of aging.
This is the result of device sharing nanoentech – A Korean startup that specializes in chips that can read biofluids. A person essentially takes a strip of facial tape, sticks it to their cheek, and then puts the strip in a buffer solution. That solution is then poured into a cartridge for analysis of the cell bioprint. Once that sample is processed, the device takes pictures of your face while you answer a few short questions about skin concerns and aging.
From there, L'Oréal says it uses proteomics, or the analysis of protein structure and function from biological samples. In this case, the cell bioprint is designed to determine how well your skin is aging. It will then provide personalized advice on how to improve the appearance of your skin, as well as estimate how sensitive your skin may be to certain skin care ingredients.
It's a tempting claim, but like most beauty technology, it's difficult to properly evaluate L'Oréal's methods without peer-reviewed studies or the opinion of experts. L'Oreal also claims the device can help predict future cosmetic issues First They appear. For example, it may be able to determine whether your skin suffers from hyperpigmentation or enlarged pores.
Skin care became popular in a big way during the COVID-19 lockdown, Promoting a shift in beauty trends toward self-care and the rise of the “skinfluencer.” On the other hand, that virality has since turned skin-care shopping into an extreme sport. Go to TikTok, and you'll find dozens of skinfluencers inspiring you to drop $80 on a vial of vitamin C serum, debating the moisturizing properties of glycerin vs. hyaluronic acid, or fingering this or that retinol cream. Are shaking. (Some may even convince you to buy a stick that hits you in the face To increase the efficacy of said ingredients.) It's confusing, expensive, and frustrating, what works for one person may not for another. The most the average consumer can do is keep their fingers crossed and hope that the latest potion they purchased will actually work.
The appeal of Cell Bioprint is that it claims to use science to cut through that noise. Maybe every skinfluencer says you need to start using retinol when you turn 30, but it The device will reportedly tell you whether retinol will actually work for you, based on your biology. Personalization has always been a major theme with CES beauty tech, but it's especially fascinating for skin care, which is highly dependent on your individual biology. But again, there's no way to know right now how reliable Cell Bioprint's science and recommendations are.
L'Oréal says Cell BioPrint will be easy to use, with the process taking only five minutes. It also says people will be able to repeat the test, allowing them to monitor changes and progress over time. That said, it may be some time before something like cell bioprinting becomes available to consumers. L'Oreal says the device will first be launched on a pilot basis in Asia later this year, but no concrete launch timeline or price has been given.