My Aesthetician is a Robot

Beauty treatments performed by robots? Once only the stuff of science fiction novels and art exhibits like the beautification machine, automated beauty treatments are now moving closer to reality.

If you are too restless to stay still for a two-hour salon appointment to have your eyelash extensions applied, the good news is that there may be a 15 minute alternative, if Wink Robotics’ invention catches on. The California company was recently granted a patent for automating the process of installing eyelash extensions onto natural eyelashes. U.S Patent No. 10,562,178 issued on February 18, protecting a device and a method involving a robot arm and a computer vision system to do the work of an aesthetician. In its online debut as Foxeye Precision Lashes, the lofty goal of bringing automation to the beauty services market was announced.

The company also has three pending cosmetic robotics patent applications, each having to do with ensuring that an automated system that works near the eyes will be safe. US Patent Publication No. 2019/0269222 describes a mask that would shield the face and eyes and only allow eyelashes to be exposed for the treatment. U.S. Patent Publication No. 2019/0314997 describes barriers for making the robotic cosmetic applicator intrinsically safe, including physical barriers or light curtains (an array of photoelectric beams that senses intrusion into a plane of detection). In order to prep the eyelashes to make them good candidates for the robotic beautician to work on, Wink Robotics is also seeking patent protection for a method of determining whether a natural eyelash is suitably isolated for the robot to work on it using a camera, as discussed in U.S. Patent Publication No. 2019/0269223.

According to the patent applications, similar robotic systems may be used for laser skin procedures, tattooing, airbrushing, spray tanning and nail polishing.

Is this the wave of the future? Rather than jumping into robotic treatments for the delicate eye, early adopters may be more comfortable using Wink Robotics’ systems for spray tanning which is a less invasive procedure. It is possible that the concept of robotic cosmetics will more readily be accepted for tattooing as well, since it is such a a time consuming, labor-intensive process that is often done on less sensitive areas of the body. The greater precision of a finely tuned robotic device may actually make tatttooing a less painful procedure.

Because of Wink Robotics, in the future when we are asked about how great we look and who did the work, we will smile and say “my beautician is a robot – wink wink”.