A vibrating hairbrush would be handy, right? Tech finds its way in beauty

Earlier this year L'Oreal announced its latest commitment to women around the world – a smart hairbrush.

The new (and frankly, quite interesting) device has a vibrating feature to aid your brushing in addition to a built-in microphone that listens to your brushing patterns to make sure you don't overbrush, while also measuring the force you're applying to your scalp.

This all connects to an app on your phone – kind of like Fitbit… except it's for your hair.

The brush was released at the Beauty Tech Summit at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas where more than 300 companies displayed products, and event organiser Jill Gilbert is excited at the tech that is making its way into beauty.

"The better the technology gets, the more we use it. You're seeing many different connected hairbrushes, many different lasers, many different microdermabrasion types of items, so the availability is there," Gilbert says.

"The question is the uptake. And I can only imagine that the growth is just beginning."

For example, Quantum Signal is an engineering firm that is now in hot demand. CEO Mitchell Rohde said post 9/11, the company was working on face recognition biometrics for government agencies. Then Amway reached out for help developing smart mirrors.

"I was a little bit surprised by that, because obviously when you start an engineering company that has a lot of automotive and defense and these kinds of connections, you don't really think about beauty and cosmetics and skin care as an application," Rohde says.

"It turns out the same systems that allow the Treasury Department to convict counterfeiters can also help someone assess their pores and wrinkles.

Rohde says on the military side it's more about recognition and identification, but on the beauty side it's more about analysis of actual details of someone's skin, but underneath it all it is the same – all of it is math and algorithms.

Jenna Blaha, the fashion and tech editor at Marie Claire magazine, said everybody wants to have the next big thing.

"This is the direction the world is going in, so if you don't invest now, then you're going to be behind," she said.

So step right up for your vibrating hairbrushes, smart mirrors and live foundation.