• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, May 3, 2014

Smartphones. Smart glasses. It was only a matter of time before someone introduced smart skincare products, and Estee Lauder’s Clinique appears to be first out of the gate. 

Lauder, on strong third-quarter results buoyed by especially good fragrance and skincare sales, says it will introduce Clinique Smart Custom-Repair Serum in July, a new generation of skincare “smart enough to understand your skin’s past and change its future.”

The company says the new line took five years to develop, and involves 37 patents. Describing it as a breakthrough, it says the serum offers targeted repair, effective on uneven skin tone, dark spots, dullness, lines and wrinkles. It claims the product, laced with high-tech ingredients as well as red algae and licorice extract, can even tell what doesn’t need fixing, but that the ingredients still remain “on call. It’s that smart,” the announcement says.

The product will cost $59.50 for 30 ml., and $89 for 50 ml. Women’s Wear Daily reports that Clinique intends to launch the new line with TV ads, as well as a print campaign, shot by Richard Pierce, running in national fashion and beauty magazines. The trade publication says Clinique is also planning extensive digital support as well, and estimates the global campaign will cost some $60 million globally, with the line generating as much as $250 million at retail.

Separately, the Estée Lauder Companies Inc. says third-quarter net sales rose 11% to $2.55 billion, or 12%, excluding the impact of foreign currency translation. Net earnings for the quarter rose 19% to $213.2 million, compared with $178.8 million last year.

“Results this quarter reflect our multiple engines of growth across product categories, countries and channels, enabling us to achieve strong local currency sales growth in every geographic region,” says Fabrizio Freda, president/CEO, in its earnings release. “Sales came in higher than our expectations … driven by the broad global demand for our diverse prestige beauty brands, the strength of our emerging markets, accelerated growth in certain developed markets and solid progress in skin care.”

For the remainder of the year, he says the company is on track with its sales outlook, and raised its earnings forecast. Those gains, it says, will be driven by “new and recent product offerings across categories, particularly in skin care and makeup.”