Beauty’s next wave of tech innovation is happening in the metaverse.

Much attention has been dedicated to fashion’s activity in the space, from luxury brands like Gucci and Balenciaga launching experiences in online virtual worlds to labels like Etro and Dolce & Gabbana presenting collections at Metaverse Fashion Week. But beauty has also been active: over the past two years, a number of brands, including Dior, Gucci, Clinique, Givenchy Parfums, Charlotte Tilbury, Nars and Guerlain have begun to embrace — or at least try out — the metaverse and web3, creating products for avatars and NFTs as well as virtual storefronts, experiences and games. In 2022 alone, L’Oréal filed 17 trademarks for virtual cosmetics and Estée Lauder partnered with Decentraland’s Metaverse Fashion Week.

Beauty and the metaverse share a number of qualities. Both are driven by a sense of fun and experimentation, said Audrey Depraeter-Montacel, managing director and beauty lead at Accenture. As well, the structure of communities in beauty, which are usually led by creators and the conversation they start with followers on social media, can easily translate to web3 spaces, where online discussion drives discourse. The beauty industry also has a history of being quick to adopt new technologies, such as augmented reality for virtual try-ons, and beauty consumers are used to seeing this sort of innovation from brands. Added to that, beauty purchases are hyper-personal, tied to identity and self-esteem and happen across a mix of physical and virtual channels that mimics the metaverse, says Depraeter-Montacel.

“Beauty is very much about creating worlds and an environment,” said Melissa Kelly, partner and chief operating officer of creative agency M+A Group. “It … lends itself to this…