Question

Topic: Branding

Creating A Skin Care App For Iphone

Posted by rrouleau on 7/4/2009 at 4:46 PM ET 250 Points
I was thinking about creating a skin care app for the Iphone. So many companies are doing it now and no one in my industry seems to have done anything yet.

I'm an esthetician/skin care expert and own two skin spas in Dallas and have my own skin care line sold on [URL deleted by staff] The real value I bring to our customers is that I offer a lot of tips/advice for solving skin care problems. For example, you can see on the home page of my site, I offer a skin care tip of the day, every day, 365 new tips a year (which I also tweet at [Address deleted by staff] and on a FaceBook fan page), so that's kind of what I'm known for...as opposed to just being a skin care product pusher (like all of the department store lines are known for). I bring real value in the way of skin advice and expertise.

So I was wondering if there was some cool and innovative app that I could develop that could help people and bring brand awareness, of course. And obviously, the end goal is to sell my products on my site, but if I could offer solutions to their problems in the way of tips and advice.

Another unique part of my company is that we go by 9 skin types (rather than the standard dry, normal and oily) and I have 68 products in my line...broken out into the 9 skin types >https://www.reneerouleau.com/Prescription.aspx so not sure if there is something I could do with the skin types. But I think if I have some sort of skin analyzer...that doesn't bring a lot of value because then after analyzing their skin, we'd just be saying "you're a skin type #5, here is what products we recommend" which I'm not sure is real valuable and unique. I'm kind of thinking about something where you can enter in your skin problem of the day...ex. my eyes are puffy, what do I do? And then it would give you a useful tip or two for helping that condition (non-product related) and then also recommend one of my products, too...I guess with a link to be able to purchase it or something.

Or maybe some sort of skin care quiz/trivia game? People are loving their apps and I'd love to get in on the fun!

I'm looking for out of the box and cool, unique ideas.

Thanks!!
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RESPONSES

  • Posted on 7/4/2009 at 7:06 PM Accepted
    Renée,
    Great question. And a challenging one. Well first, I work for a company (URL deleted by staff) that is a certified iPhone developer. So obviously I'm prejudiced toward the idea! :) That said, in this post my ideas are my own and not a recommendation from Oshyn from a development standpoint.

    After reading your post a few times and looking over your website I think you are right about deviating away from the "you are skin type X" approach. I think it might be a great idea to focus on skincare problems like you mentioned. But maybe go into some detail from a holistic approach. Though this might be complicated, you could ask questions about diet, current beauty routine, makeup, weather/seasonal changes, age, medications...etc.

    Actually now that I've written that...what about creating an app that is like a diary. Something that over time could help people see what is affecting their skin. It would be complicated and I imagine would mean redevelopment - 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 etc... But I think it could create value. Who else has something like this?
  • Posted by rrouleau on 7/4/2009 at 10:38 PM Author
    Hi Kimberly! Thanks for the input...you might be on to something.
  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 7/5/2009 at 9:31 AM Accepted
    Two things come to mind:
    1) Allow people to input what products (yours and others) they currently use for their skin and then compare them with appropriateness for their skin type.
    2) Specific tips for problem areas/skin types.
  • Posted on 7/22/2009 at 2:45 PM Member
    This may be a little far fetched, but what if you were to make it so it's like a mirror. So they could see their face directly on the screen (with the camera i'd guess) and then provide skin type photos. Does your skin look like this, does it look like this, etc...We are a fairly visual society, so that may help.

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