Beauty, made from light
Opalux creates beauty ingredients from light itself. Our pigments shape how light reflects instead of relying on dyes, so they can help protect skin from the sun or reveal colour that shifts, softly or vividly, when the wearer chooses. We partner with beauty houses and their formulation teams to bring these experiences into the products their customers love.
Our story began in a University of Toronto laboratory, inspired by the way nature creates colour in opals and butterfly wings. Before turning to beauty, we perfected our craft in one of the most exacting fields there is: the security features that protect passports and banknotes, where every detail must be right, every time.
Today, that craft is devoted to beauty. Opal Protect brings our light-shaping science to sun care. Opal SHIFT brings colour that changes at the wearer’s command across nail, lip, eye, face and hair, made entirely without dyes. With every new development, our aim stays the same: beauty that is kind to the body and to the planet.
THE TECHNOLOGY — Tunable Optical Multilayers
The properties of our material come from its structure of alternating ultra-thin layers that form a Bragg reflector. This reflects a specific wavelength of light determined by layer thickness and spacing.
Responsive polymer layers react and change the spacing when a stimulus is applied — shifting the reflected colour.
APPLICATIONS
Opal SHIFT
Opal SHIFT is an earth-friendly material providing vibrant interactive color changes when splashed, sprayed, or wiped with water, lotions, or when exposed to different pH, temperatures, or humidity.
It can be engineered to be compatible with virtually any cosmetic formulation: solvent-based, aqueous, powder, and more.
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Opal SHIFT pigments formulated in standard nail varnish binders. Dramatic colour shift triggered by water, solvents, and diverse cosmetic liquids. Deep, saturated colour across the spectrum.
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Opal SHIFT pigments for dynamic hair styling. Responsive colour triggered by sprays and styling products, oils, or ambient humidity.
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Smart foundations, highlighters, blushes, and lip products. Potential for colour adjustment triggered by natural skin sebum, setting sprays, or lip moisture.
Opal Protect
Opal Protect is designed to block UV light while remaining clear and colourless. It is adaptable to a range of materials and formats, and can be used in coatings and paints, films, laminates, and more.