Behold, a 3D Printer That Can Print Makeup! #WANT
Where do you get your beauty inspiration from — Pinterest? The beauty blogosphere? YouTube? Brit + Co’s in-house makeup and hair maven Miss Misty Spinney?! Yup, us too. Now imagine that day of DIY beauty with a bit of a bonus. Say, you pull up your “Beauty Is in the Board of the Pinner” board on Pinterest, open up a tutorial you’ve been meaning to try and… shoot, you don’t have the perfect shade to sweep on for that dramatic cat eye. What’s a girl to do? 3D print it out, that’s what.
As much as we love DIYing our own any-and-everything, there’s not a ton we can easily make when it comes to makeup beyond a simple lip gloss or blush hack. And hitting up MAC every time there’s a new look we want to try, although part of our dream life, is not a part of our real life. Mink would change that. Announced at technology conference TechCrunch Disrupt in NY, Mink is a desktop printer that would bring the beauty aisle into your home with tech you’re already using (we promise).
An inventor and a Harvard business school grad, Grace Choi had her eye on the $55 billion makeup industry. As she puts it: “They make a lot of money on a whole lot of bullsh*t.” Sassy, true (we like the way you roll, Grace) and a story you know too well if your drugstore-size budget can’t buy the love of your department store dreams. As she sees it, the Sephoras and specialty shops often play on your desire for that must-have shade, THE color of the season, the hue you don’t have at home. With your creativity and a bit of tech (**these are a few of our favorite things**) Grace wants to help you have it — not just cheaper, but way more convenient. As she puts it: “in your own freaking house.” Yes, that is convenient.
With Mink set up on your computer (surely an app someday soon, but we’re not there quite yet) all you would need is a color picker tool like Colorzilla to copy the hex code from any image. Nab a color directly from the eyeshadow palette Michelle Phan is demoing in a video, steal the blue from this breathtaking picture of the ocean, pull the shade straight from a picture of your friend’s lipstick then drop the color into software like Photoshop and press print. Mink works just like an inkjet printer with ink that’s FDA compliant and on MAC’s level.
We got excited about the prospect of mixing up our own nail polish colors at home when we heard about pending Quirky invention Palette, but Mink completes our beauty-full dreams. Like Palette, Grace believes her makeup printer will be the gift of the year post-launch for younger girls ages 13 to 21. Yes, they already turn to the ‘net for beauty inspo, but your little sis could benefit in more ways than just convenience for DIYing makeup at home. By “open sourcing” if you will, the tools to let girls turn their phones, laptops and cameras into infinite beauty aisles, we’re giving them the ability to make, create and define what beauty is. We’re taking that power away from the big ol’ $55 billion industry and giving it to some people we would much rather invest in.
(Photos + h/t: TechCrunch)
