Associating cosmetic products to skin tone color

• US 10,296,958 B1
• Filed: 09/13/2016
• Issued: 05/21/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 05/22/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sephora USA Incorporated (Christian Dior SE)
• Original Assignee: Sephora USA Incorporated (Christian Dior SE)
• Inventors: Tuan, Lucie, Thattil, Savio, Stauffer, David, Poplawski, Ryan, Cochran, Meghan, Zelmar, Marcy, Gopalan, Venkat, Bornstein, Julie, Arriagada, Margarita, Rose, Christine
• Primary Examiner(s): Lu, Charles E
• Application Number:
  US15/264,530
• Time in Patent Office: 980 Days
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/44 Detecting, measuring or recording for evaluating the integumentary system, e.g. skin, hair or nails A61B5/117 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01J 3/50 using electric radiation detectors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/23 Updating
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24 Querying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0625 Directed, with specific intent or strategy
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0627 using item specifications
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0631 Item recommendations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/90 Determination of colour characteristics
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/22 by selection of a specific region containing or referencing a pattern; Locating or processing of specific regions to guide the detection or recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/16 Human faces, e.g. facial parts, sketches or expressions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/046 Interoperability with other network applications or services

Abstract

A system allows people to more easily find products matching their skin tone. The system includes a database that categorizes cosmetic products according to a skin tone color set. The system includes a scanning device to scan one or more spots of a person'"'"'s skin. For example, three different spots can be scanned. The scan determines a skin-tone identifier for the person'"'"'s skin. With this skin-tone identifier, the customer can view products that match their skin tone.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a database of cosmetic products, arranged by a product manufacturer classification, wherein the database of cosmetic products includes a plurality of cosmetic manufacturers;

a skin tone color space; and

a database of cosmetic products with skin tones comprising;

a first field reserved in the database, wherein the first field identifies a first analyzed cosmetic product; and

a second field reserved in the database, wherein the second field identifies the first analyzed cosmetic product, and each cosmetic product of the database of cosmetic products at least one match to a skin tone identifier in the skin tone color space,

for an analyzed cosmetic product, a record includes the analyzed cosmetic product in the database of cosmetic products with skin tones,

for a record associated with an analyzed cosmetic product having only a single color in the database of cosmetic products with skin tones, there are at least two fields storing different skin tone identifiers associated with the analyzed cosmetic product,

a first determined skin tone identifier is stored in the first field associating the first determined skin tone identifier with a first analyzed cosmetic product, and

a second determined skin tone identifier is stored in the second field associating the second determined skin tone identifier with the first analyzed cosmetic product,

wherein a query of the database of cosmetic products comprises determining from a received user skin tone identifier, obtained from an optical scanner, whether the received user skin tone identifier matches at least one of the first determined skin tone identifier or the second determined skin tone identifier,

the database of cosmetic products with skin tones is stored on nontransitory computer-readable media.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the query to the database of cosmetic products with skin tones includes performing a first search of the database of cosmetic products with skin tones, and a result of the first search identifies cosmetic products associated with the first user skin tone identifier.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein the first analyzed cosmetic product is determined as matching the first user skin tone identifier by way of the first field having a first determined skin tone identifier that is the same as the first user skin tone identifier.

4. The system of claim 2 comprising:

a second user skin tone identifier provided by a second user, wherein the second user skin tone identifier is used to perform a second search of the database of cosmetic products with skin tones to identify cosmetic products associated with the second user skin tone identifier, wherein the second user skin tone identifier is different from the first user skin tone identifier.

5. The system of claim 4 wherein the first analyzed cosmetic product is determined as matching the second user skin tone identifier by way of the second field having a second determined skin tone identifier that is the same as the second user skin tone identifier.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the user-provided skin tone identifier comprises information derived from one or more measurements taken from a scanning device.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the user-provided skin tone identifier comprises exactly one identifier defined by the skin tone color space.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein determining from the received user skin tone identifier, obtained from the optical scanner, comprises:

causing the optical scanner to transform at least two scans taken at least two different locations of a user'"'"'s face into a single skin tone identifier that is representative of the at least two scans.

9. The system of claim 1 comprising:

a handheld scanning device, wherein the handheld scanning device comprises a scanner display on a first side and the optical scanner on a second side, opposite to the first side, so that while the scanning sensors of the handheld scanning device are placed directly against a user'"'"'s skin, the display remains visible on the first side.

10. The system of claim 9 wherein the handheld scanning device, after being placed directly against the user'"'"'s skin at a first location, perform a first scan to generate a first intermediate result representative of the first location, where the first intermediate result is not displayed on the display,

after being placed directly against the user'"'"'s skin at a second location, perform a second scan to generate a second intermediate result representative of the second location, where the second intermediate result is not displayed on the display,

using the first and second intermediate results, calculate a skin tone identifier that is representative of first and second locations.

11. The system of claim 1 wherein the query of the database comprises a first received user skin tone identifier returning the first analyzed cosmetic product and another query of the database comprises a second received user skin tone identifier, different than the first received user skin tone identifier, returning the first analyzed cosmetic product.

12. A method comprising:

providing a computing device, communicatively coupled to a network;

accessing a database of cosmetic products, arranged by a product manufacturer classification, wherein the database of cosmetic products includes a plurality of cosmetic manufacturers;

providing a skin tone color space;

accessing a database of cosmetic products with skin tones, accessible to the computing device over the network, wherein the database comprises

a first field identifying a first analyzed cosmetic product, and

a second field identifying the first analyzed cosmetic product, and for each cosmetic product of the database of cosmetic products, said cosmetic product is associated with at least one match with a skin tone identifier in the skin tone color space;

for an analyzed cosmetic product, providing a record associated with the analyzed cosmetic product in the database of cosmetic products with skin tones,

wherein the record associated with the analyzed cosmetic product includes only a single color in the database of cosmetic products with skin tones, the single color associated with the analyzed cosmetic product corresponds to at least two fields storing different skin tone identifiers defined by the skin tone color space that include a first determined skin tone identifier stored in the first field associated with a first analyzed cosmetic product, and a second determined skin tone identifier is stored in the second field associated with the first analyzed cosmetic product;

causing a first query to execute against the database of cosmetic products with skin tones, wherein the first query determines that the analyzed cosmetic product corresponds with a first user skin tone identifier, and the first user skin tone identifier is obtained using an optical scanner; and

causing a second query to execute against the database of cosmetic products with skin tones, wherein the second query determines that the analyzed cosmetic product corresponds with a second user skin tone identifier, the first and second user skin tone identifiers are different skin tone identifiers, and the second user skin tone identifier is obtained using the optical scanner.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein the first query specifies a first user skin tone and a first search of the database of cosmetic products with skin tones identifies cosmetic products associated with the first user skin tone identifier.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the first analyzed cosmetic product is determined as matching the first user skin tone identifier by way of the first field having a first determined skin tone identifier that is the same as the first user skin tone identifier.

15. The method of claim 13 further comprising:

providing a third user skin tone identifier from a second user; and

performing a second search of the database of cosmetic products with skin tones to identify cosmetic products associated with the third user skin tone identifier, wherein the third user skin tone identifier is different from the first user skin tone identifier.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein the first analyzed cosmetic product is determined as matching the third user skin tone identifier by way of the second field having a second determined skin tone identifier that is the same as the third user skin tone identifier.

17. The method of claim 12 wherein the user-provided skin tone identifier comprises information derived from one or more measurements taken from a scanning device.

18. The method of claim 12 wherein the user-provided skin tone identifier comprises exactly one identifier defined by the skin tone color space.

19. A method comprising:

providing a computing device, communicatively coupled to a network;

accessing a database of cosmetic products, arranged by a product manufacturer classification, wherein the database of cosmetic products includes a plurality of cosmetic manufacturers;

providing a skin tone color space, wherein the skin tone color space comprises a specialized color space where each color in the skin tone color space corresponds to a skin tone found in the general public;

accessing a database of cosmetic products with skin tones, accessible to the computing device over the network, wherein the database comprises

a first field identifying a first analyzed cosmetic product, and

a second field identifying the first analyzed cosmetic product, and for each cosmetic product of the database of cosmetic products, said cosmetic product is associated with at least one match with a skin tone identifier in the skin tone color space;

for an analyzed cosmetic product, providing a record associated with the analyzed cosmetic product in the database of cosmetic products with skin tones,

wherein the record associated with the analyzed cosmetic product includes only a single color in the database of cosmetic products with skin tones, the single color associated with the analyzed cosmetic product corresponds to at least two fields storing different skin tone identifiers defined by the skin tone color space that include a first determined skin tone identifier stored in the first field associated with a first analyzed cosmetic product, and a second determined skin tone identifier is stored in the second field associated with the first analyzed cosmetic product;

causing an optical scanner to transform at least two scans taken at least two different locations of a user'"'"'s face into a single skin tone identifier that is representative of the at least two scans;

causing a query to execute against the database of cosmetic products with skin tones, wherein the query determines whether the analyzed cosmetic product corresponds with the single skin tone identifier, and the single skin tone identifier is obtained using the optical scanner; and

sorting the analyzed cosmetic product to determine whether the analyzed cosmetic product exists in an inventory.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein each color of the skin tone color space comprises a color captured at approximately 6500 Kelvin.

21. The method of claim 19 wherein the database of cosmetic products comprises only foundation or tinted moisturizer products.

22. The method of claim 19 wherein the single skin tone identifier represents a darkness and an undertone of the user'"'"'s face as two separate values.