Patents on the soles of your shoes...: Oh, patents! Sephora® Pantone® Color IQ

Sunday, February 18, 2018

Oh, patents! Sephora® Pantone® Color IQ

Gals, do you find it hard to figure out exactly what color lipstick really, really suits you? Do you know what color foundation you might wear that is just perfect, not too dark and not to light?

No more worries! Sephora®, the French chain of 2300 cosmetics retailers in 33 countries, can scan your skin, and provide you with a Pantone® Color IQ number and product recommendations that are precise matches for your skin tone. Just the four usual skin tone options: fair, light, medium and dark is way too few, as you have probably already experienced. Indeed, more than 200 detectable skin tone variations exist. All you need to do is to get tested at Sephora® to find out your specifics (for free).

The Sephora® scanning technology that analyzes your skin tone is patented in the US patent US9519927 (B1), titled System for cosmetics matching based on skin tone (color tone matching program). The Sephora® skin scanner is coupled to a software program that connects users to the inventory of products available. Once the customer is scanned and has received a Pantone® Color IQ number, the number is entered into the program which returns product suggestions. Thus, the Sephora® Pantone® Color IQ technology is not only designed to match skin tone to available product shades, it is also designed to facilitate the selection of products by reducing the possibilities, among the hundreds available.

The patented technology is incorporated within a “kiosk” comprising the skin scanner, the tablet for viewing the selection of recommended products, the counter, and electrical outlets, at a retail store. Preferably, using lights of different wavelengths, the optical scanner takes three skin images: one above the eyebrows, one between eyebrows and chin, and the third below the chin. The images are then processed (i.e.; mapped, mixed, blended and averaged) inside the scanner, into a single color identifier using the parameters of a Pantone® skin tone color set, based on sample population skin tones. The single color identifier is then wirelessly sent to a database of available products, which have been previously lab-tested and sorted according to the Pantone® skin tone color set, derived from population skin tone samples, so that the customer’s specific skin tone ID can be matched with suitable products.

The abstract of the invention is included below, together with patent and marketed images of the Pantone® skin tone set, derived from population sample skin tones, and used both for lab-testing all inventory products, and determining your own skin tone color ID.

A system allows people to more easily find products matching their skin tone. A kiosk at a retail store or other location can assist customers in determining what products are right for them and then purchase them from the retailer. The kiosk can include a scanning device is used to scan one or more spots of a person's skin. For example, three different spots can be scanned. The scan determines a skin-tone identifier for the person's skin. This skin-tone identifier is used by a software program (e.g., executing on a tablet computer) to determine and output a listing of products that are appropriate for the person's skin tone. [Abstract US9519927 (B1)]