about-face x Inference Beauty: Precision Shade Matching

Foundation Finder

3 minute read

Client type

Makeup Brand

Stats

87%

Completion-Rate

39%

Click-Rate

Challenge

about-face, the boundary-breaking beauty brand, has built a loyal global community by championing creativity, self-expression, and high-performance artistry. As the brand continued to expand its inclusive shade ranges and launch new complexion products, they faced a familiar digital challenge:

How could they ensure that every shopper — across all skin tones, undertones, sensitivities, and life stages — could confidently choose the right shade and product online?

Online customers often hesitate to purchase complexion products without personalized guidance. Even with about-face’s commitment to transparency and accessibility, the lack of real-time digital consultation created friction in the customer journey, which risked limiting conversions and preventing shoppers from fully exploring the brand’s offerings. To honor their mission of empowering self-expression for everyone, they needed a tech-forward solution that made shade matching intuitive, accurate, and creatively liberating.

Solution

To meet this challenge, they partnered with Inference Beauty to integrate cutting-edge beauty technology directly into their digital experience. Together, we implemented a suite of advanced tools across their complexion lineup, ensuring that every customer could discover the perfect match with confidence.

A comprehensive and intelligent tool capable of recognizing 112 unique skin tones, while providing a diagnostic experience recommending foundations, concealers, highlighters, and more. It evaluates age range, skin tones, and undertones to ensure every suggested routine aligns with about-face’s ethos: high-performance, vegan, and made for real life.

These tools brought the artistry of an in-store consultation into the digital world, empowering every shopper to express themselves fearlessly while ensuring accuracy, simplicity, and trust. With a frictionless shade-matching experience, about-face strengthened its role as a creativity-driven, tech-savvy leader in inclusive beauty.

Dolapo R

Vice President, Marketing

Working with Inference Beauty has transformed how our community discovers and connects with our products. The quiz experience seamlessly blends creativity with precision — empowering our customers to explore shades and other high-quality products with confidence. Engagement like this is unheard of, as our audience isn’t just browsing; they’re genuinely discovering themselves in the process. It’s helped us bring our vision of radical self-expression to life in a whole new way.

Foundation finder

In the first 24 hours of launching their new product collection:
– Over 87% of visitors completed the quiz
– A click-through rate surpassing 37% on recommended products.
– More than 85% of users showed heightened product curiosity, diving deeper into the new collection after interacting with the experience.

The impact was immediate: accelerated conversions, stronger customer confidence, and a digital experience fully aligned with their core belief — that no one is just one thing, and everyone deserves makeup that meets them exactly where they are.

About about-face

Founded by singer and self-taught makeup artist Halsey, about-face was born from — and made for — a diverse, boundary-breaking community of creatives. They make high-performance makeup with integrity and intention, designed to meet you at every stage of life and self-expression. Built on the truth that no one is just one thing. People are complex, layered, messy, and beautiful because of it. Self-expression is how they honor that complexity — every vibrant, chaotic, tender, and bold side of who we are. Delivering state-of-the-art products at an affordable price — giving us stage-ready skin without breaking the bank.

Foundation Match Technology