Since my freshman year of college, I’ve used the same small, silver makeup mirror that my mom and I took on a dorm-shopping trip to Bed Bath & Beyond. We bought it next to two XL sheets, bath towels, and a shower caddy that all ended up in the dark depths of the trash—but somehow, the mirror is still there. Over the years, it has done its job: allowing me to see my face clearly while picking at my skin (sorry!), plucking my eyebrows, and applying makeup. Isn’t that the perfect makeup mirror? Apparently not, according to Swan Beauty.
On January 14, the brand released a 15-inch AI-powered mirror with five technological pillars—skin-analyzing AI, smart makeup artist, do-it-yourself builder, affordable marketplace and “embedded social community”—which is a far cry from my old glasses pulled off the defunct retail shelf. Last week, I gave up my low-frills mirror and only used the Swan iteration, which comes with three lighting temperatures (warm, cool, neutral) and seven brightness levels, and I’m following in the footsteps of smart mirrors like Tonal and Lululemon Studio in tech. again price: It will cost you $795 for the aluminum hardware and an additional $10 per month to access the AI and AR tools built into the mirror display.
When the gifted sample arrived at my door, I felt conflicted—I’ve been trying my best to avoid using artificial intelligence because of its reputation for promoting mindless laxity and cheating, perpetuating harmful biases, not to mention its extremely negative environmental impact. But no matter how horrified I am to see an email written in ChatGPT, it feels like AI is rapidly being integrated into everything, even beauty. Is Swan replication the future of technology or another case of beauty product AI-washing?
The most prominent use of AI in the Swan screen is the feature I was most excited about: the skin analyzer. After you answer six questions about various aspects of your skin—including oil production, current condition, overall skin type, and your age—it takes a picture of your face and tracks the seven main concerns of your skin: wrinkles, pigmentation, texture, oiliness, redness, acne, and UV spots. Based on those metrics, it gives your skin a “score” somewhere between 0 and 100. Personalized tips and product recommendations appear on the screen immediately after your scan. According to Colby Mitchell, the founder and CEO of the brand, this feature was created by dermatologists who studied “thousands of faces” who measured them personally against seven parameters “to do. [Swan’s] the smartest machine possible.”
You might be thinking, Why the hell would I need to track my skin? Good question. But tracking can help if you’re trying to gauge the effectiveness of a new product, identify specific skin triggers, or want to know if it really was that third glass of wine that made your redness more prominent.
I had two or three scans a day over the course of nine days, and my score was always 87-91; I can work on my UV exposures, obviously, and Swan recommends using products containing niacinamide and arbutin (both known for their skin-brightening properties) to boost my score. The skin analyzer also covered my under eye and smile lines as wrinkles, lowering my score even though they are two things that a normal human face has. Mitchell says people of all ages can benefit from using the Swan mirror, but no one has 100% lines, so no one will have a perfect, wrinkle-free score. When asked for clarification, the Swan team said that the skin analyst “identifies physical features such as under-eye lines and smile lines because they are a natural part of how the skin changes over time.” They added that “a 60-year-old is not compared to a 25-year-old, and natural aging is never considered a failure.” And while I agree, I’m not sure the rest of the world agrees yet.
