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Tech

This Magic Mirror Reflects Your Face, With Kim Kardashian's Makeup

With augmented reality, your reflection doesn't have to look like you.
​Image: Modiface/Vimeo

No one wants to see what they really look like when they look in the mirror, or at least after they've finished with it. Like the evil stepmother in Snow White, we want to come away feeling more beautiful than when we first looked in the glass. Enter augmented reality smart mirrors, where your reflection is you—but improved.

The ModiFace​ Mirror, which launches today, is one such AR beauty device. Intended to be installed at beauty counters, it basically lets you try on products virtually, so you can get an idea of how you'd look in new makeup without going through the trauma of smearing a bunch of lipsticks on your face and then frantically trying to scrub them off.

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ModiFace CEO Parham Aarabi described it to me as "a true magic mirror for makeup."

There are other smart mirrors out there: At this year's CES, Motherboard's Kaleigh Rogers tried out a Panasonic mirror that gleefully pointe​d out her wrinkles and pores, while an earlier ModiFace device offered an anti-a​geing effect.

This makeup mirror, however, is kinder: It doesn't try to point out what's wrong with your face (at least not for now) but rather lets you play with different looks—which, if you ask me, is what beauty products should be about.

Thanks to facial tracking and a live video output, the mirror is pretty convincing; it presents an image that looks realistically 3D even as you turn your face, rather than like you've superimposed clip-art on your face. Aarabi got into the field after working on lip reading applications as a professor of computer engineering at the University of Toronto, and realising that the lip contour tracking tech could be used for beauty applications.

"Then we have to render a change to the face—meaning if it's a lipstick we have to actually show the texture of if it's glossy or if it's a liquid lipstick. All those have to look realistic," he said.

I didn't have a magic mirror to hand—they cost $2,000 and are intended for in-store use—but ModiFace also has an app that offers a similar home experience for still images. It captured my face from a selfie pretty well once I helped the system locate my eyes and mouth, and playing with the different colours was strangely compulsive, like flicking through Tinder matches. Be warned, however, that some of the more staple products, like black eyeliner, are locked as in-app purchases.

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You can play with the blushers, shadows, mascaras, lipglosses and so on individually, but to get an idea I gave myself a "look"—a full makeover based on a celeb picture. Here's me going full Miley and Kim K:

modiface miley .png

While the Kardashian makeup might be a bit of a horror show, it's pretty convincingly rendered. Aarabi confirmed the facial recognition works with all skin tones in all lighting, and all genders—though facial hair can affect the quality of the rendering.

Of course, the point is to help sell makeup; the mirror units start at $2,000 and are meant for in-store rather than home use. Aarabi couldn't tell me who will first be rolling out the mirrors, but they've been testing the mirror with makeup brands Sephora and CoverGirl and the newest version has over 2,000 shades already programmed in the system.

Next, the company wants to extend the mirror to work with other products, like skincare or hair colour. "The idea of the mirror will keep being expanded to all types of mirror that help you see potential changes to the face," he said.

This hints at a potentially more brutal future, where you could be taunted with the image of how your face could look, if you just smoothed out those wrinkles, or sorted out those blemishes, or had that nose job.

Then again, maybe you won't need to. In a world of selfies and digital communication, perhaps modifyi​ng a virtual avatar is enough. Who needs to actually buy the real-life product when you can have a perfected Infinite Jest videophone-style image of yourself?