Sensory in the metaverse

The ever-evolving metaverse offers tech-loving beauty brands a renewed way to provide e-commerce through virtual marketing, advertising, and shopping opportunities. It would create infinite possibilities in digital sales for various cosmetic applications.

• In skin care, snap-chatters can see the before and after effects on their face of regularly using the same product, whether a moisturizing cream, cleansing milk, or plumping mask, through a virtual result.
• In makeup, consumers could have their makeup professionally done and then buy those makeup products digitally to use as a filter for an app. 

While our eyes may be dazzled by these before and after simulations, what about our other senses?

Even if beauty-tech enriches the customer experience, please be cautious. Not only is the metaverse still in development, nothing can measure or define tactile sensations as accurately as the trained human touch.

How can we define the sensory or texture characteristics of a cosmetics formula in the real world?

If you ask fundamental research chemists, they will focus on instrumental measurements, defining products by what the apparatus can measure, like pH, viscosity, color, odor, and even biological efficacy through clinical testing. The problem with these methods is that they only consider the product and the stimulus, not the context and the treatment of that stimulus by the human body. No device can interpret and reproduce the sensations and reactions of the human body. And neither can virtual simulations.

It is therefore necessary to have people analyze what our senses perceive.

Our expert sensory panel, established in 1996, gives Gattefossé over 25 years of sensory expertise and hundreds of textures in our database. We understand that texture is at the heart of any cosmetic product, the charm card that seduces the customers, and drives re-purchase behavior. It can even provide material for marketing communication and the perception of efficacy. Therefore, it is crucial to define and quantify sensory criteria in order to develop products that please consumers.

Gattefossé can offer texturizing agents, both conventional and natural, each with a unique sensory identity. And, we can offer sensory training so that cross-functional teams can have the same vocabulary and protocols when creating and evaluating new textures.

To learn how our signature emulsifiers can impact your formulation or schedule a Sensory Analysis training, please contact your local representative.