Apple has just announced the list of winners of the App Store Awards 2023, an award that celebrates the best applications available in the online store in different categories, from games to physical activity. Among the big winners of this edition is a Brazilian: fashion designer Roberta Weian won the prize for best iPad application of 2023 with her Prêt-à-Makeup, which offers a realistic online experience to those who wish to test products and create their own makeup. looks.

“Winning this award is a dream come true,” says Roberta, founder and CEO of the startup behind the project. His idea was to transport the tools of the face cards to the virtual universe. If you’re a professional makeup artist, beauty enthusiast, or have visited the backstage of a fashion show, chances are you’ve already come across one. A sort of makeup sketch, the facial chart provides the graphic representation of a face, serving as a sketch for beauty artists try out your ideas on paper before applying them to your face. It turns out that, until recently, this mechanism could not be faithfully reproduced digitally: the graphics always fell short of the actual colors and textures of cosmetic products.

That changed in 2019, when a group of 13 people, including engineers, fashion designers, graphic designers, illustrators, 3D artists, videographers and administrators, joined forces to bring to life at Ready-to-Make-up. What distinguishes the application is precisely its realistic appearance, which even takes into account the pores of the skin, the impact of light and accurately represents the characteristics of the products — from glitter to matte effect, even considering the combinations between them.

A database of thousands of items is accessible to designers, who can also find themed kits with a pre-selection of colors and textures, based on trends or iconic beauty looks, such as milk makeupwhich recently went viral on TikTok, or the cat’s eye.

At the heart of the application is Metal technology, which increases the resolution of graphic resources on Apple platforms. MAC, one of the world’s largest cosmetics brands, has also shown interest. The Canadian company ordered a customized version of the tool from the startup to make it available in its physical stores, transforming the way consumers try its new products.

The application is the second project of the startup, created in 2013 in Porto Alegre. The first, called Prêt-à-Template, brought similar technology: it adapted fashion sketches to virtual reality. There were over 5 million downloads on the Apple Store alone. Today, Prêt-à-Makeup is available on iPhone and iPad in more than 170 countries and has been translated into 12 languages.