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L’Oréal is giving the hair dryer a long-overdue makeover.
“During the last 100 years, because the first invention of the hair dryer, individuals have been drying their hair in the identical manner,” says Guive Balooch, international managing director of augmented magnificence and open innovation at L’Oréal.
The usual hair dryer present in houses and salons makes use of convection heating, that are thermal rods that flip orange as they warmth up, with a motor powering wind to push that sizzling hair to the pinnacle. It’s the identical heating expertise that’s discovered within the toaster. The issue? The hair dryer is extremely inefficient. By the point warmth hits the hair, 50% of vitality is wasted, leading to an eco-unfriendly machine that’s used every day in lots of houses and gobbles up extra vitality than practically all different small electronics.
At this yr’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, L’Oréal is unveiling the brand new AirLight Professional hair drying software, which is provided with infrared expertise powered by tungsten—halogen bulbs which might be designed to shortly dry hair with out the necessity for extreme warmth. L’Oréal says AirLight Professional makes use of 31% much less vitality consumption than main premium hair dryers.
The AirLight Professional, which is able to promote for “below $400,” will launch in European salons in Could the place “they care in regards to the velocity and the way effectively it seems to be in your hair,” Balooch says. “The patron expectation is that it ought to work and it ought to be quick.” The machine can be extra broadly obtainable to all customers by the autumn of 2024.
The dream crew
L’Oréal constructed a crew of over 100 engineers, designers, hairdressers, and scientists to develop the AirLight Professional, which delivers as much as 33% extra hydration and as much as 59% visually smoother hair than when naturally dried. The AirLight Professional dries the water on the floor of the hair however leaves inside moisture within the strand, leading to shiner hair. L’Oréal examined the machine on greater than 500 individuals throughout the USA and Europe and on 4 totally different hair sorts: straight, wavy, curly, and coily. The corporate additionally included suggestions from stylists because the tech behind AirLight Professional advanced.
Since 2016, L’Oréal has frequently debuted new tech twists for magnificence at CES, launching greater than 10 improvements together with a tool that helps these with restricted mobility apply lipstick, a skin sensor to watch ultraviolet gentle publicity, and a “smart” hairbrush. L’Oréal CEO Nicolas Hieronimus is delivering the keynote speech at CES 2024, the primary ever from a magnificence firm.
Balooch says that L’Oréal’s method to magnificence tech is to start out with fascinated with what individuals want, then backfilling with expertise. “We work on fixing shopper tensions and never on tech tasks,” he says. “We’ve to consider sure components of magnificence as we speak, rituals of magnificence, and perceive whether or not or not they have to be disrupted. And generally they don’t.”
L’Oréal has ramped up the wonder big’s dedication to tech with some monetary investments, together with the minority stake it took final yr in a Korean micro-printing startup Prinker, and an funding in Zuvi, the {hardware} startup that helps L’Oréal construct the AirLight Professional. Zuvi itself additionally sells an expensive $260 Halo Hair Dryer, whereas different rival choices embody the $430 Dyson Supersonic.
Balooch says combining the experience of L’Oréal, which understands the biology of pores and skin and hair and has a number of well-known manufacturers, with the science of Zuvi’s {hardware} is the particular formulation behind AirLight Professional. And on the finish of the day, magnificence have to be within the eye of the beholder.
“The objects need to look stunning,” says Balooch. “They need to be one thing that folks need.”
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