Mink Is A 3D Printer For Makeup | Hacker News Reader

Mink Is A 3D Printer For Makeup

techcrunch.com

43 pointsdenzil_correa22 comments

They don't appear to have a website. I tried to look them up after the techcrunch event here in NY and it seems that that was the first time anyone had ever heard of them.

That said, I actually disagree with hagbardgroup. If Choi can pull this off, I think it would open up the world of custom makeup to a huge market of people far beyond the "home-brew" makeup hobbyists. The idea of putting on a fall outfit and being able to print out the perfect shade of mauve without getting in my car and going to Walgreens and spending $12 is pretty incredible. I think a lot of women, even those outside the target age bracket, would find this product useful.

Website: http://gracemink.com/

Original TechCrunch source: http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/05/mink-is-a-3d-printer-for-ma...

The comments on that article are very interesting, as they assert that the product isn't finished and the demo was extremely hacked together.

Thanks. We switched to that url from [1] as a more original source.

1. http://www.elle.com/news/beauty-makeup/3d-makeup-printer

Dumb question: what's the matter with the home makeup brewing methods that have been used for centuries now?

If you know women in the home-brew makeup/perfume/beauty community, it seems like they're already well served without needing a printer. The same people who would know enough to buy a printer also know enough to buy pigment from a craft shop. The market that isn't that clued in reads Seventeen or Elle and overpays for Revlon at Walgreens because they're low-information consumers. The low-information consumers are already buying Revlon because they don't know any better and don't want to know any better.

I think what'd be more interesting is a machine that serves the small manufacturers better, which can make small batch runs more profitable and reduce reliance on larger manufacturers.

Good idea, but it seems like that idea is serving a different market. It feels like there's room for both.

This is the first time I've ever heard there are people making their own makeup at home. Given that people are already doing it - I think there is even a better market for this product.

People were already calling town cars before Uber came along.

Continuing this thread of thinking , maybe the reason people will buy this is customizability and play , not price ?

And from a quick search it seems that there are some cheap makeup available online, So my guess this industry is mostly based on marketing(branding, controlling channels, etc), so you'll need disruptive marketing, and maybe home printers + youtube tastemakers would work well for that.

Pro's/USP

1) Repeatability

2) Ability to communicate to others your work-social/viral

Cons:

1a) Colour gammut problems

2a) None (?)

There is risk of failure but also (potentially large?) upside...seems worth trying out.

Is that the difference between say someone baking bread from scratch and someone using a bread maker? One it just easier than the other. In fact assuming, unlike a bread maker, the makeup printer is nearly instant and makes just about 1 application worth at a time that seems like a huge convenience.

Then again, I have no idea what making/mixing your own makeup is like. I also have no idea how accurate it is. I'm assuming if I ask the machine for a specific color I'll always get the exact same color and that it will take under a minute once I've selected the color.

TIL I'm a low-information consumer.

There is an interesting story with the UK company "Lush". They were an early commercial player in the create your own makeup scene, with a main appeal of creating the cosmetics in-store, to order and while customers watched. Sorta like a gourmet chef. Lush was never able to get FDA or whatever approval for that type of 'unsanitary and unsafe' business model, and their US based counterpart is a sad reseller of bath products in fancy packaging. I expect the larger cosmetics industry keeps a firm hold on any home brewing of makeup with a mixture of regulation, and FUD.

Yup. Lush is an amazing shop. I know lots of women who buy soaps and such almost exclusively from there.

I really don't understand the attention Choi is getting with this. After watching her on stage at Techcrunch, and seeing how vague she is with the actual implementation, it's pretty clear to anyone paying attention that she simply painted a printer and pretended to print a makeup pod. My girlfriend even remarked how it looked exactly like a Bare Escentuals pod off the shelf. She basically got all this attention with an idea and no actual implementation.

To me, this would be the same as someone going up on stage and saying they've created a food printer, stuck a Subway sandwich in there and pretended to "print" it. If I were to do that, I'd be laughed off the stage instead of getting so much press and acclaim.

Her ability to convince the world was perhaps because this idea seems simple enough that we just might believe it (although I have to think printing a dye on a substrate you can apply to your face is a VERY hard problem.)

Not that I give much weight to Techcrunch as it is, but it saddens me to see so many other companies that worked so hard and actually built real things get overshadowed by an HBS MBA who built a weekend hack reminiscent of many high school science fairs efforts.

I really really hope she proves me wrong.

Why where makeup at all? The whole beauty-industrial-complex seems so ripe for destruction, and not disruption. My wife wears zero makeup, and I find she's ridiculously hot. Lets face facts: 1. Most makeup is not good for your skin 2. Makeup is deceitful (you're not showing your true self to the world = deceitful) 3. It's an enormous financial burden (especially for single women).

The fact is people wear makeup in spite of your stated facts, and have been for thousands of years. Makeup is just one part of how humans express identity, and for me it's on the same level as shaving, doing my hair, putting on a nice smelling perfume, wearing a nice suit with a tie and a pocket square I carefully coordinated. You call it deceitful, I call it enhancing.

It's pretty much ingrained in any culture, and it's not going away anytime soon. Makeup is here to stay, and definitely not ripe for 'destruction'.

Try and ask your girlfriend to show up without makeup on a party (or just out if she is above 30). By hiding imperfections the makeup enhances looks and the latter is quite an important factor for females' own perception.

Do you shave? I'm just going to assume you do and then ask you why you choose to deceive the world about your hair growth.

It's the same thing. It's not actually good for you (removes a natural defense for your skin), it's deceitful and it's a financial burden (you have to buy razors and supplies).

Human beautification is a many thousands of year old tradition -- it's as much a part of being a human as expressing oneself through language.

that's a pretty false analogy, if you care to compare the sexes there are men that wear makeup as well.

facial hair can be a potential fire hazard, and is often considered to be too unhygienic for food workers. Both are reasons for an employer to request your continual shaving.

Do similar problems arise for cosmetics and the people that wear them? I don't wear cosmetics, but I don't believe that there are any overlapping laws which restrict their use such as the rules that food handlers must abide by.

While you've brought up perfectly valid points, you didn't actually refute anything I said.

Yes, some people are required to shave for their job, but most are not and still do. Some women are required to wear makeup for their jobs, but most aren't and still do.

Regardless, my initial arguments still apply to all the cases where one is not required by one's job.

So your arguments are "because it's been that way for thousands of years"? That basically amounts to cultural relativism. I would have figured a bunch of hackers ("disrupters") would be more willing to set aside thousands of years of tradition more easily that the masses of duped souls in the general population. Lesson learned I guess. Too bad.

In danger of feeding a troll - our arguments are not that it's been that way for thousands of years, but that it's part of our nature as self-expressed beings, and that the thousands of years of history and spanning all cultures is evidence of that.

I'd like to see your arguments on how putting on makeup is not like cutting your hair or shaving, or should we also "destroy" haircutting/shaving? I'm not talking about haircuts out of convenience, but the ones you do to look decent in front of your clients. Do you have long hair in a ponytail, convenient and haircut-free?

It's ironic how you call us "masses of duped souls in the general population" yet you're the one campaigning against a core tenet of expression as a unique human - the way we make ourselves look like the way we want to.

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