L’Oreal is developing of realistic artificial skin that will be able to “feel,” paving the way for ethical testing of cosmetics and other products without the use of animals.
Unveiled at the Viva Technology conference in Paris last week, the bioprinted skin can replicate common skin conditions and behaviors, like eczema, acne, tanning and wound healing.
Guive Balooch, who heads the company’s tech incubator, told CNBC that the “ability to use 3D printing with biology” to personalize the reconstructed skin will “be a revolution.”
L’Oreal, which has partnered with the University of Oregon on its synthetic skin development, is also in the process of manufacturing artificial skin that can provide sensory feedback to scientists when testing cosmetics, negating the need for testing on animals.
“We will have this kind of idea where sensors will allow us to not only have the ability to test on reconstructed skin but also have the … sensory reality feedback, which is what happens when you apply products and all that, so that we can get assessment of not only the efficacy but also the sensory feedback,” Balooch told the outlet.
The company, which has not tested products on animals since 1989, has used synthetic skin to test cosmetics for years, per CNBC.
“Having pioneered Beauty Tech for years, we are firm believers that technology can push the boundaries of what’s possible for beauty to improve the lives of people around the world,” Barbara Lavernos, the deputy CEO overseeing Research, Innovation and Technology at L’Oreal Groupe, said in a statement ahead of the conference.
“With advanced diagnostics, augmented beauty services, GenAI assistants, augmented creativity in the GenAI era, and breakthrough electronic devices, we are shaping the beauty of the future to be more personalized, more inclusive and more responsible.”
The Post has reached out to L’Oreal for further comment.
The synthetic skin is crafted using a technique called melt electrowriting (MEW), which creates multiple layers of “plastic scaffolds” — or “finely structured 3D printed threads” that contain cultured cells — separated by a membrane, making it look akin to human skin in a first of its kind innovation.
“This is the first known case of replicating quality skin tissue at full thickness, using different kinds of cells separated by a membrane,” Ievgenii Liashenko, a research engineer who works at Paul Dalton’s University of Oregon laboratory, said in a statement.
Dalton, an associate professor at the university, noted that “other attempts don’t have the same layering” that theirs does, which is what makes it appear like “real skin.”
Previous synthetic skin replicas typically require 21 to 35 days to create, but the breakthrough model takes only 18 days to grow.
“Our collaborative research has not only accelerated the skin reconstruction process but also opened avenues for future applications in skin tissue engineering,” Anne Colonna, the head of Advanced Research at L’Oreal, said in a statement.
The implications of the team’s innovation reach far beyond the world of cosmetics — the researchers say the artificial skin could be used to study wound healing, create skin grafts for burn patients, treat diabetic foot ulcers and more.
“While we’ve made this big advance with the skin, the design of the scaffold is crucial and could be applied more broadly,” Dalton said. “There are so many diseases and injuries in the world that aren’t being solved, so having an extra tool to try to tackle these is really valuable.”
