Clarins, the 72-year-old French heritage cosmetics brand, has found a sweet spot between AI-powered technology and in-person customer service.
In 2025, the company quietly launched a beta test called Clarins AI Shade Finder, an exclusive in-store service trialed at 20 Clarins kiosks and counters across France and the U.K. The idea was simple: Empower its beauty advisors with a tool to help them select the perfect foundation shade for shoppers using a dedicated iPhone and a few quick photos. By keeping the technology in the literal hands of its associates, it maintained a seamless experience that took just a few minutes to complete.
Clarins quickly saw its basket size double and its conversion jump to 70% within the 20 stores with the new tech. Anecdotally, store associate confidence increased and consumers felt better taken care of, Alex Nkengne, director of Clarins digital innovation lab, told Glossy. It also creates an unexpected, “icebreaker” moment between the sales associate and customers, he said.
The technology was developed in collaboration with IlluminateAI, a Silicon Valley deep-tech startup that emerged from stealth in August of last year. Konrad Jarausch, founder and CEO of IlluminateAI, developed the technology by leveraging the iPhone’s camera and scientific disciplines such as spectroscopy and materials science, which measure how the skin interacts with light to produce a more accurate picture of the individual’s skin tone and undertone.
“There’s so much you can do once you have accurate data [about the skin], and so I really think about us as a data company for the beauty industry,” Jarausch told Glossy.
This solved the exact problem being explored at Clarins: inconsistent interior lighting that complicated foundation shade matching for its associates.
“The light environment is very, very essential when you perceive the color [of makeup], which means that in different lighting environments, you will see different things. This is normal — it is just the way your eyes and your brain work,” said Clarins’ Nkengne.
As far as basket size goes, the Clarins team was pleased to see lip color and bronzer purchases jump alongside complexion products like foundation.
“Originally, the primary goal was to improve the experience of recommending and selling foundation [at the makeup counter],” Laurent Malaveille, Clarins chief digital, IT and business support officer, told Glossy. “A very positive surprise that came out of the pilot stores is that, thanks to the color matching, it created many other potentialities, including recommending a more complete look for the customer. … The undertone is very important [to know when recommending] lipstick, concealer and bronzer.”
Clarins was launched in 1954 and is owned by the Courtin-Clarins founding family. The line sells DTC and through retailers like Sephora, Ulta Beauty and Nordstrom. Its best-sellers include the $140 Double Serum, $75 Total Eye Lift cream and $32 Comfort Lip Oil.
Clarins is now executing a full in-store rollout of the Clarins AI Shade Finder that includes more than 200 stores, counters and kiosks in seven countries: France, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Switzerland, Mexico and the UAE. The expansion is timed to support the launch of Clarins’ new $65 Double Serum Foundation. More locations and regions are planned for late this year.
Clarins is the second beauty brand to integrate IlluminateAI’s new technology.
IlluminateAI is based in Santa Cruz, California. Its investors include tech-focused VC Augment Ventures and E.l.f. Beauty, the latter of which leveraged the technology in 2025 to support its Halo Skin Tint franchise launch in its DTC channels in June. The company debuted the try-on tech in its app to support the launch, which included 18 shades of its $18 SPF Skin Tint and 15 shades of its $15 non-SPF Liquid Filter. The conversion increased threefold, and the foundation lifted sales. During the company’s August 2025 earnings call, CEO Tarang Amin revealed that “Halo Glow Skin Tint was our top-selling cosmetics product in Q1 on elfcosmetics.com.”
IlluminateAI competes with companies like PerfectCorp’s ShadeFinder, which licenses its tech to beauty companies, as well as retailers like Sephora and Ulta Beauty, and brands like Il Makiage and Maybelline, which feature a combination of online surveys, virtual try-on and shade matching.
