Innovation Opté by Procter and Gamble is the real-life beauty filter coming to your face in January 2020 By Camay Abraham COPY URL

For many, perfect skin may sound like the best holiday gift you could get this season, and that is exactly what beauty powerhouse Procter and Gamble will soon offer with its latest product, the Opté Precision Skincare System. Using 3D printing, the beauty device covers and fades hyperpigmentation spots through facial scanning and a bespoke serum with skin lightening and anti-ageing properties. Combining science, technology and beauty could finally be the answer to reaching a filter-like face.

You may be rolling your eyes at yet another perfect skin-matching device for your ever-growing beauty table. We’ve all heard it before, but this time it might be the real deal. Procter and Gamble has teamed up with its development partner Funai Electric Co, a Japanese electronics company known for printing, and pioneered a new product combining innovative cosmetic 3D inkjet printing, facial recognition and LED light technology.

The skin wand will analyse your complexion, identify hyperpigmentation like freckles, scars, and acne spots, and aim to precisely cover them with shade-matching serum. This will leave the rest of your skin bare, leading to the most naturally perfect skin ever. Or so it seems to promise. In talks since January 2019, the Opté Precision Skincare System will finally be available in January 2020. Say goodbye to the dreaded demarcation line where your foundation ends because soon, you’ll have the same skin with or without Instagram filters.

Already being touted as a sort of skin saviour to the beauty industry, how will this device change our beauty routine? Time in front of the mirror can significantly be dwindled down depending on your patience. The application process of a sweeping motion across your face could either be effortless or completely cumbersome. Who knows, if you don’t sweep the device just the right way, it may not work as perfectly as it could, leading to tears of frustration over a ruined makeup look—which we’ve all been through.

The device supposedly paints on very little product, so when you go for that end of the day makeup removal wipe you’ll be surprised to see how little is left. And for those who worry about their carefully curated 10-step skin regimen, let me reassure you, you will be able to print your new filtered face right after your skincare. The Opté wand also means that we will be able to save major coin on our makeup budget. At £464 for 3 months of serum, broken down to £154 per month, the beauty tool can be considered reasonable for most ‘beauty addicts’. Think of it this way, if you only need to apply it once a day as it claims, then this will result in a £5 a day application, excluding those needed no-makeup days. Keeping in mind that this beauty wand could allow you to forego expensive foundations, BB creams, and serums, not to mention the amount of time wasted while trying to find the perfect shade, it sounds like a good deal to me.

But the Opté could be more than the perfect beauty tool, it could also alter the way we perceive beauty. The wand is promoted as an inclusive product for all genders, ages, and skin colours. It could even reach people that are already skittish about the idea of wearing makeup, because technically, it isn’t makeup. It’s a much lighter formula than a foundation, one that is more similar to your skin colour than any other foundation.

The wand comes in 3 different skin cartridges in light, medium, and dark which is intended to work for about 98 per cent of skin tones. Until now, critics chastised Photoshop and other beauty editing apps for smoothing over our imperfections and promoting fake beauty but with this device, could that ‘fake’ beauty become our new reality?

Not needing a full mask to feel beautiful could be 2020’s revelation. This Facetune on a stick might also promote mindfulness by forcing us to slow down with each swipe. The application process will take between 3 and 5 minutes—it is up to you to make this moment more about loving your skin than it is about masking it.

It is too early to tell, but hopefully, there are no short-term or long-term side effects that come with the device, while LED light has had its controversial moment, being thought as a link to skin cancer and at the same time FDA approved as it uses small doses that prevent age spots, treat acne scars, and stimulate collagen.

When the Opté wand was first announced, everyone thought it was too good to be true. So let’s wait a few more weeks until January 2020 to see its true colours. Am I signing up for the waiting list? Absolutely. Am I deleting all my mobile editing apps with furious vigour? Not just yet, I will have to wait and be sure that the Opté wand means that #nofilter will be my everyday setting.

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