Cryptocurrency Enters The Beauty Market

Written by: Poppy Skinner Created: 26 September 2018

Blockchain and beauty? Yes, really.

There may be many things you associate Cryptocurrency with; darkened rooms with trading geeks, a new wave of crypto - millionaires but beauty is not one area that necessarily goes with this new wave of trading. Well that is, until now.

Enter Opu Labs and their simple, yet incredibly smart new system. In short, what it does is set you up with some of the world's leading dermatologists and skincare experts, all from the comfort of your own home. It couldn't be simpler to use-  simply upload a photograph of yourself which is then analysed using Opu Labs technology of facial recognition upon which the user is given Opucoin which can then be used to buy beauty advice from their panel of experts.

When it comes to the brands facial recognition, they have recruited a host of skincare experts including acclaimed New York based professor, Dr Anna Karp, to help the technology recognise some of the industry's key skin concerns including hyperpigmentation, wrinkles and redness, with each expert spending between five to ten hours each week helping Opu Labs perfect their technology.

Devised and created by Founder and CEO Marc Bookman in 2014, the company joins the likes of Sephora in the quest for virtual beauty advice and at a time when jargon like bitcoins and cryptocurrency hits an all time high on the search radar with current values at $1 trillion,  things are looking good for this US based company. According to the brand, their user base hit an all-time high just a few months ago at 103,000 and counted visits from a whopping 109 countries.

But with Bookman having zero industry knowledge, his words, not ours, why skincare? The answer it seems it simple: "The women don't trust the ads, the bloggers are all paid off, and there's misinformation out there" he rightfully points out, so he did what any good entrepreneur does and came up with a solution which is to give the people what they really want and can really trust, all from the comfort of their own smart devise.

While the technology is still in its early days, Bookman is hopeful for the future, adding that initiatives such as beauty goals and make-up finders won't be far away.

Written by: Poppy Skinner

Poppy covers a wide range of topics at Billionaire, having spent the past 13 years at companies including Singapore Tatler, Her World Plus and Harpers Bazaar UK. She has a passion for fashion, jewellery and travel as well as an avaricious fascination with crime novels. Follow her at poppypskinner on Instagram.