Shiseido files patent on heating method to improve post-makeup UV protection

Writing in its international patent​​, Shiseido said it had designed a heating beauty device and method that improved absorption of protective skin care compositions – sunscreens, liquid face creams and liquid foundations – offering better UV protection for the user.

The heating device, it said, either heated the skin during application or the skin care formula ahead of use, improving protection because ultraviolet absorbers contained in the sunscreen could be “introduced into the stratum corneum layer of the skin by the action of heat”.  ​

“More specifically, the composition for skin care containing ultraviolet absorbers can be introduced into the first to fifth layers of the stratum corneum (…) particularly in the first layer of the stratum corneum,”​ Shiseido wrote in one of the patents.

“…Therefore, even when makeup is applied after skin care products are applied to the skin, the effect of UV absorption by the UV absorber can be maintained,” ​it said.

UV protection increasingly key​

Shiseido said awareness around the need to protect skin against harmful UVA and UVB rays had increased and subsequently product offerings had expanded, with many sunscreen formulas containing a variety of UV absorbers on the market.

However, the beauty major said the protective effect of these formulations “may be lost by subsequent makeup, that is, by rubbing the skin with a sponge, hand, brush, etc.”​

There was a need, therefore, to address this with a cosmetic method “capable of maintaining the effect of ultraviolet absorption by an ultraviolet absorber”​ even after makeup application.

Shiseido said its invention solved this problem.

“In the present invention, the heat application device is not particularly limited as long as it is a device capable of heating the skin,”​ it said. It was important, though, that the device included a temperature display unit and time measurement unit to “control whether or not the target heating temperature has been reached”.​

Ultimately, the beauty major said the unit could be marketed to consumers as a “warmed facial treatment device”. ​It noted too that makeup could be applied immediately after warmed application of a sunscreen or protective formulation.

Hot and cold beauty tech​

The concept of using devices to alter skin temperatures was an area being looked at closely by the wider beauty industry.

This month, Shiseido outlined its research in this space in a separate international patent​​. The company had developed a device that adjusted skin temperature quickly and efficiently, according to the patent, heating, cooling and then re-heating the skin to improve blood vessel contraction.

Last year, fellow beauty major Estée Lauder Companies also filed two patents​: one for a reusable pump device that simultaneously cooled and dispensed product and a second for a single-use cosmetic pad with a self-heating function and preloaded formulation. The latter, it said, had been designed to provide “faster results”.​

WIPO International Patent No. WO/2022/190965​​
Published on: September 15, 2022. Filed on: March 1, 2022.
Title: “Beauty method”​
Inventors: Shiseido – T. Suzuki