Estée Lauder Firms wins Innovation Award for inclusive magnificence tech

The Estée Lauder Firms (ELC) has been awarded the Innovation Award on the 2025 World 50 Impression Awards for its Voice-enabled Make-up Assistant (VMA), a cellular app developed to help visually impaired customers in making use of make-up independently. The award reinforces rising business recognition that accessibility just isn’t solely a social crucial however a market alternative.

CosmeticsDesign spoke to Robin Shum, Lead, Product Administration, and Lynda Pack, Interim CIO at ELC for extra insights into the R&D behind the corporate’s VMA know-how and its influence on business stakeholders.

A strategic response to market gaps

With over 1.3 billion folks worldwide dwelling with a incapacity or neurodiversity—and solely 4% of magnificence and private care manufacturers actively addressing their wants—ELC noticed a transparent hole, Pak defined.

“The Estée Lauder Firms acknowledged the chance to create inclusive know-how that may empower and serve the underserved market of people with bodily and visible disabilities,” she shared.

“The inspiration for creating the Voice-enabled Make-up Assistant (VMA),” she added, “stemmed from our dedication to making a extra accessible magnificence business.”

For producers and suppliers, this technique represents a shift in product growth priorities: adaptive options and inclusive design are quick changing into non-negotiable for in the present day’s magnificence client.

Human-centered analysis fuels product design

ELC’s growth of VMA started with “human-centric person analysis and in-depth interviews with visually impaired and blind contributors throughout the globe, offering our design staff with actual insights into the wants and challenges confronted by this group,” Pak defined.

Following ELC’s preliminary international analysis, the corporate labored with visually impaired and blind client contributors to co-develop its VMA know-how in collaboration with the group it aimed to serve. “The event strategy of VMA was a collaborative effort,” Pak shared. “We labored intently with visually impaired people to co-create this progressive answer.”

These insights knowledgeable each facet of the instrument, which makes use of real-time voice steerage and AI to evaluate product software—resembling lipstick, eyeshadow, or basis—and provides corrective suggestions to the person. “Our focus has been on usability, making certain that the applying is accessible and empowering for visually impaired customers,” she mentioned.

“This suggestions was instrumental in designing the app to be as intuitive and user-friendly as potential, with little to no studying curve,” she defined.

VMA combines sensible mirror know-how with ELC’s proprietary augmented actuality, AI, and machine studying capabilities. It audibly identifies the place make-up is utilized, checks for evenness, and alerts customers to areas needing touch-ups.

Based on the corporate’s press launch, “VMA identifies any areas on the face that will require extra correct software and audibly describes the place contact ups could also be wanted.”

Business recognition with enterprise implications

“Successful the Innovation Award on the 2025 World 50 Impression Awards is a proud second for ELC and a testomony to our dedication to inclusivity and accessibility,” Pak shared. “This recognition acknowledges the halo impact of our work,” she added, ”not simply in empowering our blind and visually impaired customers, however in setting a precedent for industries to reimagine inclusion-driven innovation.”

Held on March 12 in Miami, the World 50 Impression Awards acknowledged 9 class winners chosen from over 100 entries representing 65 firms throughout 15 international locations. ELC’s award displays the rising affect of inclusive innovation on model fairness and client loyalty.

Product management and future affect

Shum has been a part of the VMA initiative from its early levels and helped information the know-how’s person analysis, growth, and design. “It’s an honor for this necessary work to be acknowledged by the World 50 Impression Awards,” Shum advised CosmeticsDesign.

“I hope this encourages different firms to construct inclusive options and evokes leaders to ask how they will empower know-how and design groups to create universally accessible options.”

ELC first launched VMA within the UK and Eire in January 2023, adopted by the US in April 2023 and Mexico in Could 2024. With its continued rollout, the corporate is signaling to producers, packaging suppliers and know-how companions that accessibility is now a part of the luxurious expertise.