3D Printer for makeup products

I remembered when the computer lab in my high school first got its 3D Printer, everyone marveled at how it could print out little plastic objects instead of the plain, conventional papers. Years later, when I read about Grace Choice and her “Mink” 3D Printer, I experienced the same excitement. Who would have thought 3D printers could be applied to cosmetics?

Before discussing “Mink” specifically, let’s go over the functioning principles of 3D printers. First, a 3D digital model could be created by 3D scanners, which employed different technologies like “time-of-flight, structured / modulated light, volumetric scanning and many more.” (1). Then, that model would be sliced into thousands of horizontal layers with a software, and feeded to the printer through USB, SD or wifi. The 3D Printer would then print the object layer by layer, reading every slice as a 2D image. I imagine the basic API would probably be something like this:

public void print(new Object(width, length, height)){

for(int i = 0; i < height, i++){

print(width*length);

}

}

Now, the 3D printer developed by Grace Choi and presented at TechCrunch Disrupt NY  essentially works the same way. Instead of buying expensive makeup products by such brands as L’Oreal or Chanel which just charge a price disproportional to its material costs, consumers can use “Mink” to print out their own cosmetics. They can choose any color hue by specifying its unique hex number, then “Mink” would print that exact hue — using FDA-approved color dye — on the powder substrate that constitute regular makeup. 

That means rather than paying for overpriced blushes, eye powders and lipsticks that have trendy colors, customers can just take a picture of a celebrity wearing that lipstick color, find its hexadecimal number by Photoshop, and effortlessly print out their desired product. “Mink”, if gaining popularity from users, might be a big blow to long-established cosmetics companies, present customers with a more affordable alternative, and revolutionize the makeup industry.

Sources: http://3dprinting.com/what-is-3d-printing/