Sephora's New Lipstick Try-on App Works Creepily Well

Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.

Sephora is giving you another reason to bury your head in your phone, just in case you were growing tired of making yourself barf a rainbow on Snapchat. The beauty retailer is adding an extension to its already-essential app that will allow users to try on lipstick colors virtually.

Sephora Virtual Artist uses face-mapping technology — a fancy way to say that it can identify your lips from your ears — through the camera on your phone to determine the location and size of your lips. From there, users can swipe through over 3,000 lip colors divided into different categories like brand, format, and shade family. The brands list spans everything from bareMinerals, Bobbi Brown, and Clinique to Smashbox, and Urban Decay.

The app uses "state-of-the-art" technology to overlay the chosen color on users' lips and then essentially act as a mirror.

But that's not all! The app also lets you compare four different shades at once and can even filter down its massive selection based on shades it believes will best compliment your skin tone using "the exclusive Sephora + Pantone Color IQ foundation, concealer, and lip color matching technology."

Lastly, the app also offers the option to "Shake It Up," a feature that will randomize the lipstick shades users are testing out.

"We know our clients wish they could try on every lipstick in our store.  Now they can — instantly and effortlessly," said VP of Sephora's Innovation Lab Bridget Dolan in a press release. "Our focus is always to launch technology that provides a true benefit to our clients... We want to make buying lipstick more fun than ever, and maybe a little addictive."

We tested the app at the Racked office and it identified a range of different lips very quickly and worked well. You can download the app from the iTunes store now.

Photo: Sephora/iTunes Store