Electronic Eyelashes Hit The Charts

    What do you have in mind when it comes to beautytech? If you think about smart mirrors, cosmetics mobile apps, Snapchat-like lenses your knowledge of beauty tech is already pretty advanced. Tech innovation has touched a lot of aspects of the beauty industry. However actual makeup, on which an average women spends about $300,000 in a lifetime, seems to be the area most people think has the least room for innovation. Women (and men) have been using makeup since ancient times, but not much has changed since then, except for new formulations and packaging of the cosmetic products.

    Swedish designer Tien Pham disrupts the entire idea of make up by introducing e-make up product – led-powered eye lashes or f.lashes. Here’s how they look:

    The f.lashes are really easy to apply. Just like with regular falsies, f.lashes take only a couple of minutes to put on. All you need to do is to attach led-powered strip eyelashes to your eyelids using makeup glue. To turn the flashing lights on you need to activate a tiny battery, which is connected to each strip by two invisible wires and secured on the back of your head with a hair clip. But this it not the most fascinating thing about the eyelashes.

    Within only a few days the f.lashes crowdfunding campaign has doubled the funding goals on Kickstarter raising astounding $86,000 (as of June, 27). The campaign is running till July 21. If you choose to back it now, expect your f.lashes in January 2018.

    If, however, you choose not to wait for 6 months delivery, DYI option is also available. In Stockholm we have already seen very similar technology at Biohacker Summit, when Katia Vega, PhD at MIT Media Labs showcased her FX e-makeup application Kinisi. Technology behind Kinisi activates LEDs hidden on the skin and hair in accordance to face muscle movements, thus making your skin act as an interface. Vega put her research in a Beauty Technology book where she explains how to design products using wearable beauty tech. The book is available for order here.

    Pham commended that f.lashes were not affiliated with Vega’s work, but were built from scratch by his co-founder Davey Taylor. Nonetheless, seeing electronics used in day-to-day beauty products leads to a conclusion that we may notice much more of those in the future.