Intelligent make up - Will it take over the world?

I recently became the proud owner of a tube of Boots No7 Intelligent Colour Foundation. Intelligent makeup is something that has intrigued me since it went on the market about 12 months ago. I keenly unpacked my new foundation, which had come free with something I actually needed, and looked curiously at the little black tube.

I wasn't entirely sure in what way a foundation could be intelligent, it didn't seem fair to expect it to take an IQ test that was developed with the western adult human in mind, yet I wasn't sure by what criteria I could test it. I tried speaking to the foundation but got no response. I gave it a pen and paper but it didn't write; I even left it alone for a while in case it was shy. I sat it in front of a keyboard but it didn't type. It didn't even seem capable of a simple stimulus-response behaviour.

Eventually I concluded that the only fair way to test a product was to test it's suitability for the purpose it was designed.

The foundation claims that it can adjust to your natural skin colour (implying that its "intelligent" system could tell what colour your skin is.)

Although the makeup was a different colour to my skin when it came out of the tube, when I applied it to half of my face, hey presto! It vanished!

Successfully guessing my skin tone? No, I concluded that the reason that my skin appeared it's original colour after I applied the makeup was that my skin was still it's original colour and the makeup was too thin to make a difference.

When I compared the half of my face with foundation on, to the clean half of my face I could see no difference in colour, texture or blemisheyness making me wonder why anybody would pay in excess of £10 for a product that made them look exactly the same as they did before applying it. Intelligent? I don't think so.

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