Aiming to train professional make-up artists, Sephora Beauty Masters set out to choose the best make-up artist in its 12th year. We are now in the days when the excitement is at its peak in the competition held in cooperation with YSL Beauty this year. Before the final night, we asked L’Oréal Turkey Luxe Division General Manager Ufuk Batur what we were wondering about the competition, innovations in the beauty industry and digital transformation…
Ufuk Batur, General Manager of L’Oréal Luxe
What is the purpose of the Beauty Masters competition held in cooperation with Sephora x YSL Beauty? Can you talk about what kind of competition it is?
Sephora Beauty Masters is a worldwide special program that allows make-up artists to develop their make-up skills and creativity for 12 years. YSL Beauty is again sponsoring the project for the 9th time this year. With the strong cooperation and vision of Sephora and YSL Beauty, make-up artists receive training throughout the year and at the end of the training, the best make-up artist of the year is selected.
The Beauty Masters project started with a very special art event in September. A wide variety of trainings and activities were carried out on this road with 30 competitors. Firstly, 16 semi-finalists were determined with the interim eliminations. Now there is the final competition where 8 finalists will compete and the winner will be determined.
What would you like to say about the contribution of the contest to the beauty industry?
We pioneered the digital transformation in the beauty industry by using online and offline channels together in the trainings in the project, with the return of make-up after the pandemic and the digital presence in our lives more than ever before. For the first time, we organized workshops to improve the digital competencies of make-up artists, something that has never been done globally. It is invaluable to us to support our field investments with our online business to ensure a seamless and seamless consumer experience.
The Beauty Masters competition has reached the finals, is there any change in the competition this year? When will we know the winners?
This year we will be holding the final of the competition bigger than ever before at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Our 8 finalists will compete live in front of the guests on January 19 and the winners will be announced that day. Contest make-ups will consist of the coolest and most impressive YSL looks. Didem Soydan, Rachel Araz, Şansım Adalı and Ece Sükan as the presenter will be with us on the jury.
The use of technology in the fashion and beauty industry is increasing. One of the latest and fun examples of this is YSL Beauty’s smart device, Rouge Sur Mesure. What does the product promise us? Where can we find it in Turkey?
We can say that Rouge Sur Mesure is a lipstick factory that you can carry with you. This smart device works with the help of an artificial intelligence-supported application and allows users to create their own personalized lipsticks in 10 minutes. With Rouge Sur Mesure, you can create a lipstick in exactly that tone by showing the object of the color you want to your phone’s camera, or you can get color suggestions by pulling your combination. You can also see how the lipstick will look on your lips before producing it on your phone screen. You can also save your favorite tones to the device and name them. The device is available at exclusive locations abroad and only at Beymen Zorlu Center in Turkey.
What is the importance of the concept of Beauty Tech, which brings technology and beauty together, for YSL Beauty, do you have any clues about what we will see in the coming periods?
At L’Oréal Group, we call ourselves a Beauty-Tech company. You can see the reflection of our Beauty-Tech vision in all our brands within the group.
One of YSL Beauty’s most exciting projects ahead of us is Scent-Sation. Leveraging neuroscience to provide personalized scent advice, YSL Beauty Scent-Sation is an innovative experience that monitors consumers’ emotional responses to different scent families and analyzes them to make product recommendations. Users first answer survey questions about scents that stimulate their senses. Then, with the help of an EEG-based earphone, it is determined what relaxes the users, what gives them energy, what makes them focus, what arouses their emotions for 25 minutes, odor profiles are determined accordingly, and odor recommendations are made according to the results. Scent-Sation, which will be available later this year, offers a unique in-store experience by helping consumers navigate the vast world of fragrances.
How has the consumption of luxury cosmetics changed especially after the pandemic?
There is a growing interest in luxury beauty products. The luxury industry has gained importance during the pandemic period as it responds to people’s desire to feel unique in a world where everyone is equal. Consumers began to prefer brands that provided them with personalized products and experiences. Our experience-oriented and research-oriented consumer base has grown considerably.
How did this change affect you as L’Oreal Luxe?
With the innovations we made in our sales channels, we quickly adapted to the change and greatly improved our e-commerce infrastructure. Today, on our brand websites, beauticians recommend products to our consumers online. We also have an application where you can try lipstick virtually on all our online channels. We launched our ‘instant chat’ application to solve the problems that our consumers may experience during the product purchasing process. Apart from that, we do skin analyzes on Lancôme and Kiehl’s websites.
The experience we offer to our consumers, not only in e-commerce but also in our stores, is very important to us. With our techno-beauty devices called Derma Reader at Kiehl’s and Skin Screen at Lancôme, we make skin analyzes for our consumers in stores, determine their skin needs, and recommend personalized care and product applications.
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