Pantone and Sephora launched the Color IQ System, which uses Pantone Capsure to identify and categorize skin tone color with unsurpassed accuracy.
Sephora + Pantone Color IQ starts with Capsure, which is used to take an image of the skin, analyze it and assign an official Pantone SkinTone number. With that number, Sephora beauty experts reference SEPHORA's Universal SkinTone Library on an iPad, which holds over 1,000 foundation SKUs, to determine what products are a precise match for each skin tone.
"Skin tones are comprised of many distinct shades so developing this particular application for our color measuring technology was an exciting challenge for us," explained Lisa Herbert, vice president of consumer licensing at Pantone. "Even within the broader range of fairest ivory to deepest ebony, there are nuances that need to be calibrated correctly to determine the right match, and this solution eliminates many of the variables that can affect shade selection."