Sephora + Pantone Color IQ Foundation Matching System

Last week we saw an interesting app created by L’Oreal – My L’Oréal Colorist, designed to help you find your perfect hair color shade. Now Sephora, the favorite beauty specialty retailer joins forces with Pantone Institute, the world’s most respected authority on color, to help you find the perfectly matching foundation shade!

The new Sephora + Pantone Color IQ is currently available in a number North American Sephora locations including the Sephora 5 Times Square in Manhattan. The system it represents the most advanced solution for finding a foundation shade that exactly fits to your skin tone and it markets with a slogan “Never wear the wrong foundation shade again.”

Lisa Herbert, Vice President of Consumer Licensing at Pantone, explains the idea behind this project: "Skin tones are comprised of many distinct shades so developing this particular application for our color measuring technology was an exciting challenge for us. Even within the broader range of fairest ivory to deepest ebony, there are nuances that need to be calibrated correctly to determine the right match, and this solution eliminates many of the variables that can affect shade selection."

Sephora + Pantone Color IQ uses a small device that works by scanning the skin and assigning the official PANTONE® SkinTone™ number to its shade. The number then matches with a precise selection from Sephora's 1,000 foundations, brands and formulas. The technology provides color-accurate results by illuminating the skin surface from three different directions and independently from ambient lighting. It determines the exact color of the skin by analyzing various factors such as ethnicity, melanin levels, hemoglobin, sun exposure, freckles, various skin conditions, etc.

All you have to do is to head to a store and try it out, but there are a couple of things you should pay attention to:

• You shouldn’t work out 30 minutes prior to match;
• You shouldn’t have any chemical or harsh peels 3-6 days prior to match
• You should drink more water and less caffeine prior to match
• You should disclose if you are wearing self-tanner to the Sephora artist

I hope this really works! Let us know what do you think about this innovation and have you already tried it.