At the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York City this week, Harvard graduate Grace Choi presented what she says will change the way the world buys makeup.

Choi’s master plan for the future of beauty includes cutting out all the middle men, including beauty retailers and cosmetic brands. Her invention is called the Mink – a 3-D makeup printer that doesn’t require any special software, and would allow a teenager to print her own makeup at home.

Choi says that girls ages 13 and up are the perfect target market for MInk, since they haven’t formed their own makeup buying habits yet. She brilliantly points out that getting them hooked on the technology might be the key to influencing the way future generations of women buy makeup.

Here’s how it might work: A teen likes her friend’s lipstick. She takes a picture of it, uses her computer’s color picker to copy the color’s hex code, and then prints out the pigment.

Choi explained the possibility of adding a chip to the printer’s hardware, which would mix the pigment with a base, such as lipstick, eyeshadow, or foundation. Perhaps, one day, the printer could even have the ability to fill a package – so the user would lift up the printer’s lid to find her new makeup, ready to be used, like Choi demonstrated?

Packaging suppliers seem to have nothing to worry about – the next generation of beauty consumers will probably need lots of empty pots, pans, vials and compacts to fill with their newly printed pigments. But perhaps package designers should be thinking a lot more about things like refillable compacts?

Choi is looking to make a deal with a manufacturer. She says the technology is accessible, and the printer would cost only a few hundred dollars at retail. She hopes to get Mink into the hands of the beauty bloggers on YouTube – to spread the word to their millions of followers.

If Choi’s plan is a success, she says that the Mink – along with the Internet – will become “the biggest beauty store in the world.”

Watch Choi as she demonstrates the Mink – and prints pink eye shadow.

Photo: techcrunch.com


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