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To understand why the cosmetics super giant L'Oreal group is teaming up with IBM,

you must first take a closer look at its products.

Take lipstick, for example.

It's one of those things that seem straightforward.

A waxy cylinder that you rub on your lips to turn them a different color.

Easy, right?

Well, maybe not.

As my colleague Lucy Sullivan found out,

when I sent her an assignment to L'Oreal's North America Research and Innovation Center.

All right, I'm reporting live from the L'Oreal visitors' parking lot.

Malcolm told me that he would be sending me to Paris, France for this L'Oreal excursion,

but instead I am in Clark, New Jersey, past a lot of strip malls on the way here. But to be fair to Clark,

New Jersey and L'Oreal, this is a beautiful compound. It kind of looks like a spa.

Lucy went into the center and was blown away. The facility houses about 600 scientists and experts

across skin care, makeup, fragrance,

hair care, innovative packaging and tech.

It is one of the largest formulation lab spaces in the industry.

It's the size of six basketball courts.

The reason L'Oreal's facility is so big and has so many people, is that everything L'Oreal does to bring

a product to market happens here, from molecule discovery and product development to consumer

testing. The center even has its own manufacturing. My conception of lipstick, that it's just a

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