The largest organ the human body has — its skin — is probably the most misunderstood. While it’s certainly tough, over time it puts up with stresses ranging from pollution to excessive sun, requiring constant care to make sure it stays in top shape. This is doubly true for the face. Going to the dermatologist routinely, though, is a difficult proposition given a lack time and, in many cases, the money needed.
Designed to maintain optimal levels of water content, the MAPO connected beauty mask is equipped with Bluetooth LE and interfaces with a companion app to make it easier to stay on top of skin health. Within the mask are flexible electronics featuring a four-electrode array that work together to analyze skin characteristics in less than one minute. Over time, these analyses form a profile that is compared to others in the MAPO community to offer helpful, crowdsourced solutions to particular problems.
In addition, the mask can slowly warm itself to 104° to better facilitate the absorption of preferred skin care products, helping their efficacy. $218 gets interested backers the MAPO mask by June 2016. Wired Beauty, the company behind the idea, is looking for $44,000 by January 30th, 2015.
For years, the face mask phenomenon has surged in popularity within beauty markets across the world, most notably Asian countries like China, Korea and Japan. MAPO is simple, intuitive and boasts global appeal and a very willing target market who would spring for this sort of beauty aid. MAPO is extremely similar to the WAY skincare system, with the latter coming in a different, more portable form factor while taking into account the environment around the user for a more complete picture. Although it lacks a warming function, WAY seems a bit more practical for everyday use.