3D Printing has taken the world by storm, with new innovations and applications within the space coming about almost on a daily basis. Today, a woman named Grace Choi, who describes herself as a serial inventor, made her 
When you hear “3D printing” you usually think of plastic little trinkets coming out of a Makerbot Replicator or some other FDM based printer like it. This 3D printer is something entirely different, revolutionary, some may say. Choi’s creation is a 3D makeup printer. That’s right, her 3D printer, called The Mink, will print out all sorts of custom makeup from lipsticks, to eye shadows, powders, creams, foundations, and more. The driving force behind this creations stems from Choi’s frustration around finding the perfect color of makeup at a decent price. Companies like Walmart usually will only offer the most popular colors of any given makeup, while companies like Sephora, which offers a wider range of colors, charges substantially 
What Choi has done is combine the nearly infinite color options of the internet, with the convenience of never having to leave one’s home. The Mink 3D printer can pull any color off the internet, via a phone, laptop, or tablet, and print a makeup in that exact color. There is absolutely no need for any new software to use the Mink. All that’s needed is a color picker to translate the color within a photo to a hex code. All that the printer needs is substrates, and ink. The substrates come from the same exact sources that trusted makeup brands use, and are all FDA approved. The ink is printed in a similar fashion as your inkjet printer do at home.
“We are going to live in a world in which you can just take a picture of your friend’s lipstick and just print it out,” stated Choi. “The definition of beauty is something they [her customers] should be able to control, not the corporations,” Continued Choi.
Choi is looking at targeting a younger age group of girls and young women between 13 and 21 years of age. By keeping the printer itself affordable at around $300, and the ink, as well as makeup substrate at commodity prices, she hopes to launch with a bang. What this could mean for the makeup industry is almost unfathomable. Take part in the discussion around this innovative new device at the Mink 3D printer forum thread at 3DPB.com. Check out the video below from Choi’s presentation at Techcrunch Disrupt earlier today: (Source: TechCrunch.com, GraceMink.com)