How to Make Your Own 3D Makeup Printer at Home
When the words “3D makeup printer” first showed up in our inboxes, it was love at first sight — and the same can be said for how you all reacted to (and favorited, and shared) our first post on Mink, fresh off the Disrupt livestream. Cut to Re:Make 2014, where we got to hear from and fawn over the woman behind this game changing innovation, Grace Choi, IRL. In a panel on how new tech is changing lifestyle and beauty industries by bringing fully customizable products right into your home, Grace dropped a little piece of news that made our ears do that thing dogs’ do when you walk over to the counter with treats in it. Before a release date or even a Kickstarter announcement, the creator of Mink revealed that she would share a video showing how to hack your own version out of any home printer. Yes, she is that cool.
But wait! Isn’t Grace giving away the milk for free (lots of animal metaphors, bear with me, ppl) before she even has set a price for that must-have cow? “Ensuring that this idea lives has always been my first priority,” Grace explains. “I think being secretive about it all in order to be the one company that financially benefits is silly.”
Well, when you put it like that… If you thought Mink was exciting, wrap your head around how to hack your own DIY 3D makeup printer using easy-to-find supplies on a budget.
Tools + Materials
– A home printer — yup, the one you already have buried under a pile of papers in your home office. If you don’t have one, any ol’ printer will do, though Grace recommends an HP 6100, which you can find online for about $70.
– Photoshop or a free color selector, like ColorPicker or ColorPic
– Refillable ink cartridges
– Ink — Grace uses FDA-approved edible and vegetable-based ink or raw pigments and dyes. All are a simple Google/Amazon Search away!
– Clear or white cosmetics, like clear nail polish, translucent powder, clear lip gloss etc
– Pliers
– Screwdriver
Instructions
Watch the video below or follow the detailed step by steps here.
Having a good idea is good, but making sure that good idea can actually exist in the real world as a useful application available to the masses is what Grace is really about. “There has been this growing resentment towards some of the questionable and thoughtless marketing practices of the beauty and fashion industries over the last couple of years and I think we’ve really had enough. Enough about what someone else thinks we should look like, enough about what someone else thinks is a beautiful complexion, enough about what size we should be,” Grace tell us. She’s less interested in seeing $ in her pocket or her name trending on tech blogs — Mink’s impact will be much bigger than a proverbial/virtual pat on the back. “The Mink enables us to finally shut out all of this noise, it gives us back control of our minds and shift the industry so that it celebrates and serves the individual, not a standard.” It makes pretty perfect sense that she understands that that change can and should happen in people’s homes starting… now.
While we wait for the right moment to sneak Brit HQ’s printer over to our desk for a little makeover, we had to ask Grace if speaking on stage about Mink at Re:Make was different than its debut at Disrupt. She admits it was a liiiitle more “fun and relaxed” at our sweets-studded event. “I would take chatting with makers over judges any day!” Our door is always open, girl.
What do you think of 3D printing your own makeup at home? Would you try to hack your old home printer for this? Share below!
