In moves that serve both the beauty consumer and the brands that aim to capture an ever-bigger slice of their disposable incomes, Google has added hair color to its AR search tools, fleshed-out its foundation-finding capabilities, and newly enabled cosmetics companies to virtually promote their products.

Having introduced its initial round of lip and eye-focused AR beauty features in 2020, Google’s post-launch data points to a clear-cut uptick in both consumer shopping confidence and product interaction time. “We’ve seen that people are continuing to gravitate toward these tools,” says Dom McGowan, Product Manager at Google. “In fact, shoppers interact with beauty products 10% more when AR is present.”

Unveiled in late October just ahead of the holidays, Google’s intention was to help its 50-plus participating beauty brands capitalize on the fact that, per its research, nearly half of consumers also shop for themselves when they’re on the hunt for gifts for others.

Now those same shoppers can easily and productively carve-out five minutes to land on the perfect shade of Fenty Beauty Eaze Drop Blurring Skin Tint they’ve had their eye on or nab a Garnier Nutrisse Ultra Crème Nourishing Permanent Color kit to spare a last-minute sprint to the salon.

While foundation shoppers have had access to a photo library of a diverse set of 148 models to help them find their shade, Google has now added a camera try-on function. “Both are helpful to users, for different reasons,” says McGowan. “We know from research that people find it helpful to see products on models who look like them. This option continues to be helpful, especially when shoppers are unable to turn their camera on.”

A far more complex project for Google, concedes McGowan, was adding hair color to the AR equation.

“Any time we introduce a new product, it goes through our rigorous evaluation process to ensure that it maintains the high bar we set for delivering helpful features for shoppers,” she says. “In this case, it was important to us that the AR hair feature reflected what a wide range of hair dye shades would look like when applied to a diverse set of hair colors, lengths, and textures. To do it right required a custom ML (machine learning) model, plus partnership with hair dye manufacturers who developed rendering codes for each shade.”

In addition to Fenty Beauty and Garnier, Google’s list of participating brands is a mix of drugstore and prestige, and includes Pat McGrath Labs, Covergirl, Dior Beauty, Laura Mercier, and Makeup by Mario in the foundation category, and L’Oréal Paris, Splat, and Revlon in hair color.

Alongside the Google app, the AR hair and foundation search tools are available from any mobile browser in the US, and the tech giant expects to add lip and eye makeup to the mobile web by year-end.

For brands with products in the lip and eye categories, shopping ads are now eligible to feature an inclusive try-on experience in place of a classic ad image. When paired with detailed information, these enhanced ads allow brands to spotlight products in a more interactive manner, leading to a boost in sales.

Asked for Google’s rationale for building out its suite of beauty AR beauty tools, McGowan says it’s about the greater good.

“As a company, we have a long history of supporting healthy ecosystems and the open web and that includes commerce,” she notes. “We build our products, many of them free to use, in service of the broader ecosystem, which in this case means retailers and online shoppers.”

Featuring smaller brands alongside giants like Covergirl provides much-needed exposure for indies and start-ups, and also enables consumers to virtually try products they may have been reluctant to fiscally roll the dice on.

“Supporting merchants and their business goals is key to this mission,” says McGowan. “We want to make Google the place for consumers to do shopping research, as well as the place for merchants to connect with consumers. To accomplish this, we’re making it easier for retailers of all sizes to sell online, which means more options for shoppers across the board.” 

At the end of the day, AR tools are a win-win for the both the consumer and the brands they’re targeting. And the more, the better.

“We recognized that shopping for beauty products online can be particularly challenging, as these items are highly personal and visual, and helpful imagery can be hard to come by for many people,” says McGowan. “Our AR beauty tools help consumers see what products look best on them before they purchase, which enhances the shopping experience for consumers and the selling experience for brands.”