Wellness

NEW METAL MAKEUP TURNS STUFF ON

Courtesy of Kaliteliresimler. Fantasy Eye.

What if beauty could control the world? Now it can with new metal makeup. Wait. We’re not kidding. A blink of an eye can make a drone fly. A wink can light up a city. A wince can start a fire. Metal in the makeup channels electricity that can make all kinds of things happen, literally and figuratively. Seriously.

Photo: Courtesy of Beauty Technology.

Blinklifier, Beauty Technology’s brand new metal eyeliner and metalized eyelashes conduct enough electricity to power switches that can make just about anything activate via remote control.

Photo: Courtesy of Beauty Technology. Conductive makeup being applied.

After this eyeliner, made of conductive ink, is applied to both the top and bottom of your eyelids, and you add these metal-coated eyelashes, just blink, and sensors infused into the makeup will complete a low voltage circuit.

Photo: Courtesy of Beauty Technology. Metalized eyelashes.

Your blink can light up LEDs, play music, move gadgets, --- even make toast -- depending on what that circuit is designed to power. When you open your eyes, the connection is broken, so the power cuts off.

Photo: Courtesy of Beuaty Technology.

This beautiful innovation was developed by Katia Vega, a beauty technology designer at the Pontifical Catholic University in Rio de Janeiro. It is an important breakthrough, not just because it registers high on the cool-factor fashion-Richter scale, but because it can enable people who are challenged by paralysis to operate devices just by contracting their eye-muscles.

Photo: Courtesy of Beauty Technology. Beauty Tech Nails.

Vega is interested in using the body as a new kind of input device. She also developed false nails, embedded with RFID tags and magnets that can turn you into the world’s coolest DJ by enabling you to control the music my swishing your hands along the surface of water. She calls it "Aqua-DJing."

Video: Courtesy of Beauty Technology. Aqua-DJing video.

It is still all about the combination of finger movement, gesture, and timing, but this new electronic metal medium opens up a universe of new possibilities. Vega’s Twinkle Nails design reads the RFID tag each time the nail is placed above a certain physical key and translates it into a note on her software. It gives new meaning to the concept of an air piano.

Photo: Courtesy of Beauty Technology.

The nails can also activate magnetic switches in smart devices, including proximity sensors in phones. According to the project's website: “Imagine that you don't need a card for opening your door, or for paying for your bus ticket. Imagine that you don't need to carry any ticket for going to a movie. Go and shop at the supermarket or rent a book at the library without a wallet or ID card, just point and pay for it, everything at your fingertips: your nails.”

The inventions were demonstrated this month at the Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces conference at the University of St Andrews, UK.

Photo: Courtesy of New Beauty.

If you merely want to turn things on the old-fashioned way, with sex appeal, you will love these new metallic eyeshadows, with neutral colors that range from gunmetal silver, to deep gold, to copper, to bronze, to icy white --- or in a sparkling rainbow of plums, aquas, emeralds, sapphires, and more.

Photo: Courtesy of Beauty Time with Daniela. Metallic Makeup.

Some key tips for applying metallic eyeshadow are:

Use a good primer so you can lay down a smooth shine.
Dampen your brush to heighten the sheen.
Go for saturated pigments. MAC makes some beautiful intense metallic creams and pencils.
Accent your eyeline and lashes with black -- or go frosty and edgy without it....
Try mixing metals. Or doing an ombre. BeautyTime with Daniela suggests gold on the inner corners and a rusty copper in the crease with a gunmetal grey liner and black mascara.

Photo: Courtesy of The Makeup Box.

Fall is a beautiful time to rock out in metal beauty. The glints and gleams play well against the color and temperature changes happening now. Shine on.

Read about Beautiful Metal all this week, as it relates to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact, including Shiny New Delicate & Heavy Metal, Radical Design with Liquid Metal, Beautiful New Tastes in Metal, New Metal Art Alchemy, and Travels to Metallic Treasures.