This High-Tech French Face Mask Tracks the Status of Your Skin
"More water, please 💦."
Like dark matter or Leonardo DiCaprio, skin is endlessly mysterious.
Dermatologists may help us decode the health of our skin, but we don't exactly have them at our disposable. I mean, even with daily skin-induced freak outs and a vested interest in beauty, I still don't see a derm nearly as often as I should...
Recognizing this common, time-crunched conundrum—along with our thirst for face masks—Paris-Based company Wired Beauty has developed the holy grail of skincare-meets-tech: The MAPO Beauty Mask, which has been three years in the making.
So how exactly does a "digital" face mask work?
Basically, it's cast in soft, medical-grade silicon that's customized for your face through 3-D imaging (you send in photos of your face, and they do the rest) and is covered in sensors on key parts like forehead and cheeks. The detectors measure the skin's moisture and evaluate your hydration needs, as water content plays a pivotal role in protecting your skin and cell renewal—AKA keeping you young. It also factors in things like your physiology, skin type, and the environment.
The MAPO mask also works in tandem with low energy Bluetooth technology to connect to a smartphone app that tracks things like the characteristics of your skin, how stressed it is, bad habits to break, and how well your products are working for you. All you have to do is strap it on for one minute while its "corneometer" assesses your skin's temperature and moisture level, and then voilà, the data is sent straight to your iPhone.
As if personal skin intel isn't enough of a draw, the mask can also work to enhance the effectiveness of your beauty creams by heating up your forehead and cheeks to around 40 degrees, which increases the blood flow and opens up pores so that the products can be better absorbed.
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The mask, which hasn't been released just yet, will retail for $299 ($199 for Kickstarter backers) and is currently seeking funding for a June 2016 release date. Considering that I'm currently suffering from a miserable bout of winter face, I can't think of a better reason to make it rain 💸
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Lauren Valenti is Vogue’s former senior beauty editor. Her work has also appeared on ELLE.com, MarieClaire.com, and in In Style. She graduated with a liberal arts degree from Eugene Lang College, The New School for Liberal Arts, with a concentration on Culture and Media Studies and a minor in Journalism.