The French beauty juggernaut announced recently that it is partnering with Organovo, a 3D-human tissue company, to print tons of the stuff to facilitate animal-free cosmetics testing.

It’s an interesting and quite logical next step for the technology, which is already being explored for use in human skin grafts that could treat burns or for use in reconstructive surgery. But this will be the first application of the technology in the beauty industry, the companies said in a joint statement.

Decades ago, L’Oreal began exploring skin culture technologies that could hasten the company’s move away from animal testing with the use of human skin samples. The current technique involves incubating human skin — taken from willingly donated plastic surgery scraps — and growing new cells from it.