Mink - Makeup Printer

Marie Wisa Beauge
Staff Writer

    What do Maybelline, L’Oreal, Avon, Elf, Clinique and Mary Kay all have in common? They are all makeup brands that are trending in the beauty department section of your local drug store. Technology has helped shape numerous industries including cosmetics, and now, thanks to Harvard student Grace Choi, a 3D printer that can be used at home to print any shade of makeup has been invented.

    For the average female American that enjoys wearing makeup but finds themselves living paycheck to paycheck, it would be an investment to buy eye shadow from Elf, concealer from L’Oreal, lipstick from Maybelline, perfume from Avon, nail polish from Clinique and foundation from Mary Kay. That would mean a constant saving from each paycheck, and spending cuts from the “wants” to supply only the “needs” in order to have that collection. Of course one color of eye shadow, lipstick and nail polish is not enough. There has to be a red, pink, brown, black, turquoise and even white to match the desired funky style. And that means getting up, driving to a local store, walking to the beauty section, and choosing from the millions of other products there. The struggle is even worse if the right shade of foundation is not available, and two different shades have to be bought and mixed to acquire the preferred color. It’s a hard job to be beautiful!

    With the invention of the 3D printer called Mink, the problems of convenience and color choice are solved. The days where the average woman would have to spend hundreds of dollars on different makeup brands or have to struggle to find the makeup with the perfect shade are over.

    Choi, a business major, realized that the makeup industry makes a lot of money selling products to dark skin and Caucasian skin, while Asians and Indian women have trouble finding the right shade of foundation. As a result, she invented Mink. It uses the same ink that makeup companies use. This printer can “print” eye shadow, foundation, lipstick, polish, you name it. The process is as follows: You obtain a white palette, insert it into the printer, go on the computer, and choose a color on a website (Pinterest board, YouTube channel, etc.), your E-mail or bank account. You can also snap one with your phone in the real world, and use any color picker to locate the hex code of the color. Once you have the code, you can put it into any photo-editing program like Photoshop or Paint and simply press print. To demonstrate that it worked, at a conference about her invention, Choi printed an eye shadow and brushed it on her hand.

    Grace Choi plans on going to the big printer corporations to strike a deal as far as the selling of the printer goes. The Mink costs a little under $200 and plans to go on sale later this year. The targeted age group is between 13 and 21 years of age, for they are still experimenting with makeup, and should do so without paying the big prices for color selection. Choi explains that makeup companies use color and raw materials and “jack” the price to make profit. She gives the user choice of color and the raw material is very cheap to obtain.

    I believe that this will drive teens and young adults to the electronic section of stores where the Mink will be sold in the future. In theory, Mink sounds amazing. Let’s see what will happen in practice.

http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/05/mink-is-a-3d-printer-for-makeup/