“The thermal profile of the eye is more unique than a thumbprint,” says Lauren Bowker, founder of London-based material science company The Unseen. She is currently describing the basis for the company’s recently launched thermoreactive eye shadow – a world first – that will see the colour look different on each person. It’s not the most significant world first on her agenda. That is reserved for a black algae colourant that has already won an IFSCC Sustainability Challenge award.
Colour Alchemy Hair is a hyper-coloured hair dye that requires no bleaching. “It’s like loads of tiny micro-crystals,” Bowker says. “Depending on the light that hits it, colours shape-shift and evolve.” Spectra, meanwhile, is an eye colour that at first appears one shade, but transforms into a bright, reflective silver under a camera’s flash – so it looks incredible in photos. The new make-up launch will help upend the long tradition of using carbon in cosmetics.