fiive minutes 5 of the Best Virtual try-on Apps

L’Oreal Paris Hair and Makeup Virtual Try-on

This try on app is excellent for anyone who has always wanted to see what they would look like with red, blonde or raven hair without committing to the bottle. The hair colours seem pretty accurate and the hilarity factor is high -especially when you point your phone at your significant other/cat. Actually we didn’t try the cat but we will next time. The app tells you if it thinks the shade you’ve chosen won’t suit you and out of 30 shades our tester was only given the L’Oreal nod for two shades, which seemed like slim pickings at the time but on reflection, was probably spot on.

The make-up section of this virtual try on service is great and this is one of the only apps that we could see variety of texture and sheen demonstrated through the virtual lipsticks. However, sometimes it proved to be a little glitchy and a lot of purple tones seemed to spring up when the colour selected was clearly coral or red in tone.

This is one of the only apps that offers a virtual try-on service for foundations and concealers, which looked great but we have to say we would definitely need to try these in real, over the counter life.

Chanel Lipscanner Tool and Virtual Try-on

The Chanel lip scanner is genius. It allows you to scan and upload any colour of your choosing and it will find a match from Chanel’s incredible lipstick library.

Choose a magazine cover, a geranium petal or a pair of shoes and the app will identify not just the colour but the texture too.  Having found the perfect match, you can then try on this colour using the virtual try on feature to find your holy grail lip product.

You can also try out a large selection of Chanel’s lipsticks, eye shadows and liners through their virtual try on service and the quality is fantastic. The eyeliner in particular is incredibly accurate and we only wish we had such a steady hand IRL. The Chanel filter is much more subtle than on some of the other brands’ versions but maybe we do need a reality check now and then.

Bare Minerals Virtual Try-On

To coincide with the release of it’s vegan Mineralist Hydra-Smoothing Lipstick, Bare Minerals have launched a virtual try on app so that you can experience all 25 of it’s lipstick shades.  Low on filter, high on pigment and sheen, this is a really great way of trying before buying.

MAC Virtual Try-On

With over 800 products to try on, you might need to book out a whole afternoon for blue steeling into this high quality app that allows you to try on a huge selection of lip and eye colours from the comfort of your sofa with the added ego boost of an extremely flattering filter. It’s very easy to use and you can try on lots of products from a large cross section of collections in a matter of seconds. Great for anyone who wants to experiment with MAC’s extraordinary array of pigments without making the financial commitment first.

Bobbi Brown Virtual Try On

First of all, wow. High filter alert! If your idea of a great shopping experience is watching a gorgeously smooth, clear skinned version of yourself trying on a variety of perfectly applied lipsticks and eyeshadows, then Bobbi Brown is definitely the winner.

Make sure you have nude or no lipstick on when testing the lip collection, as we realised the virtual lips weren’t showing up over our already bright red lips but once we had taken off our real life lipstick the virtual try-on was excellent.

A great way to experiment with a wide range of lip and eye colours without going  to any expense – just be careful how many times you click on “add to basket” and don’t be surprised if you’re still gazing at yourself 2 hours later.