The Future of Color Cosmetics In Brief

L'Oreal R&D: French firm's Emerging Color Technologies Manager Laurent Vidal calls the firm'sTrue Match makeup line - designed "to precisely match your skin's tone and texture" - L'Oreal's biggest innovation in the last five years. "It's a big success," he said Oct. 20 at IntertechPira's Future of Pigments & Color Cosmetics 2010 conference in Newark, N.J., in a seminar titled "Emerging Color Technologies." Innovative materials on his radar for future experimentation include carbon nanotubes (known for their strength and unique electrical properties and efficient thermal conductors), quantum dots (also known as nanocrystals) and optical camouflage (presumably as a mechanism for concealing flaws). The firm spends an average of five years developing a new technology prior to commercialization of a product, Vidal said. L'Oreal spent €609 million on research and development last year, an increase of 3.7% over 2008. The firm filed around 678 patents in 2009, adding to roughly 20,000 on the books