The Future is Female and She’s Using Personalized Skincare

What is Personalized Skincare and The Best Personalized Skincare Brands

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Once upon a time, beauty was simply one-size-fits-all. But the focus is shifting. Concepts like individuality and uniqueness are on the rise. The unfortunate outcome is none-of-this-fits-me. But the good news is that there is a middle ground. And it’s called “this fits no one but you”. This is the idea behind personalized skincare. Every ingredient inside every product is for your individual skin, satisfying your unique needs. Today, we talk about all things custom skincare, its advantages, and the pioneering brands.

What is Personalized Skincare & How Does It Work?

Also called custom skincare or bespoke beauty, personalized skincare refers to a line of skincare products formulated for your unique skin.

So there is no ready-to-grab serum. There is no moisturizer to add to the cart. These products are made after you complete some sort of an online quiz/questionnaire.

At the end of your quiz, you get a skincare kit usually made of 3 products to establish a basic skincare routine. With a transparent ingredient list, you see what’s being cooked for you. These ingredients are selected based on your answers, your concerns, and your skin goals.

Every brand uses a different diagnostic method to prepare your kit. Some use AI technology and some rely on their own proprietary database. In summary, personalized skincare means personalized skincare in every sense of the word.

Bespoke beauty brands focus on this type of approach as opposed to regular beauty brands that occasionally roll out custom skincare lines. Today’s focus is on the former, not the latter.

What Are The Benefits of a Personalized Skincare Routine?

The most important benefit of personalized skincare is the customization aspect. Every formulation is made to address your skin concerns. But this is an understatement. Because it’s not about categorizing skin concerns as acne or wrinkles or redness.

It’s about your acne, the exact location where you break out, your lifestyle that affects your skin, the amount of sleep you get, where you live, and so much more. It’s all about you!

Does Personalized Skincare Work?

As much as it’s tailored, there is no cookie-cutter approach to skincare. There is no one skincare product that can answer all your skin problems. But personalized skincare is a start. And it’s a great start. And this is where beauty is moving towards.

Think of it this way; most of us Google “moisturizer for oily skin” when we’re on the lookout for a new face cream. This search yields thousands of results perfectly satisfying your inquiry offering a ton of options to choose from.

Now, think of Googling this: “moisturizer for oily-combination skin with a medium skin tone that is sensitive to active ingredients and has years of sun damage and also deals with stress breakouts”.

Do you know what you get from this search? Nothing! The answer is not on Google but in one of these custom skincare brands. Bespoke beauty is the exact result of this search.

Another issue personalized skincare addresses is the guesswork aspect of it all. The way we shop has changed significantly over the last few years.

We literally can’t afford to try every single product that might or might not work. And obviously, we can’t go sample products at the beauty counter anymore. If we make a purchase, it better work!

Compared to mass-produced skincare that is made for everyone, skincare that is made only for you is so much closer to satisfying this need.

The Best Personalized Skincare Brands

Below are the best custom skincare brands to try personalized skincare.

1. Proven Skincare

Founded by Amy Zaoshi Yuan and Ming S. Zhao, Proven is cooked up by Ivy League boss ladies. You may not have gone to Harvard, but your cleanser did! Your journey starts with an online quiz.

It starts with basic inquiries about your major skin concerns and moves on to questions about your daily water intake, and the amount of sleep you get while giving you a preview of skincare ingredients.

You’re also asked to specify your location so that their algorithm takes into account your environment, humidity, and UV index.

Best Custom Skincare Brands - Proven Skincare

Proven’s AI uses your answers to finalize your regimen. You get a daily cleanser, a daily moisturizer with SPF, and a night cream. These are all non-toxic, clean products that last about 2 months.

And every kit focuses more on one specific concern. Your first kit may be geared towards addressing dehydration whereas the second kit starts working on fine lines.

Proven is great for you if you’re dealing with wrinkles, and sun damage, and looking to improve your skin’s health with a very basic but very targeted routine.

With 3 products, the brand is inherently minimal. And their system is incredibly easy to use. The current price for the set is $199.97. The only downside is that they don’t ship outside the U.S.

2. Function of Beauty

Function of Beauty, which focused on personalized hair and body products, acquired Atolla to expand on personalized skincare.

And Atolla was also founded by two boss ladies, Meghan Maupin, and Dr. Ranella Hirsch. Prior to the acquisition, Atolla’s main focus was formulating personalized serums and modifying products based on your feedback.

After the acquisition, that changed. So here’s how Function of Beauty works. You take an online assessment test. And Function of Beauty personalizes your products and offers you a skincare set consisting of a cleanser, a serum, and a daily moisturizer.

Best Personalized Skincare Brands- Function of Beauty

You have the option to buy individual products or go for the whole kit. You can also subscribe and get free shipping. The products are all vegan and cruelty-free.

And you have the option to include or leave out fragrance in your products. The current price of the basic kit is $119.97. And they ship outside the USA too.

On a side note, I think Atolla was better when it was Atolla. What made them so unique did not make it into the new products after the acquisition. The monthly consultation, the personalized app, and the at-home kit are no longer available.

3. Curology

Curology is one of the oldest custom skincare brands. Everyone’s heard of it. It was founded by Dr. David Lortscher, who was a practicing dermatologist at the time.

Curology’s main focus is acne. And they usually formulate anti-acne medications like retinol into their relatively affordable products.

They have an online quiz where you answer about 20 questions regarding your skin problems.

Best Personalized Skincare - Curology

Questions have a focus on how often you break out, where you break out, and your journey with anti-acne medications up until then.

These questions are analyzed by real dermatologists. This is something Curology takes pride in as they seem to consider AI inferior.

The great thing about Curology is that they always have a free trial offer on their website. You get sample-size products that last you a month. You only pay for shipping.

It’s a great way to test out the regimen before committing. If acne and acne marks are your main concerns, Curology is the custom skincare brand you should consider. The prices range between $25-$45 per month. And they only ship across the USA.

This completes our round-up of the best brands that offer personalized skincare. There are many out there that I did not include. There’s Skinsei, which has a more holistic approach, Kura, which offers clean skincare, Dermatica, which does ship outside the USA, Pure Culture, and many more. But in my opinion, these three are exceptional in what they do.

Is Custom Beauty The Future?

Besides putting individuals at the center and prioritizing their needs, personalized skincare has a hustle culture woven into it. After all, these people, the forerunners of personalized skincare, are practically entrepreneurs.

They redefine the way we take care of our skin. The beauty industry is worth hundreds of billions. And they’re going against the traditions by utilizing science, technology, and innovation. It’s new, it’s hot, promising, and it’s exciting.

As you can see, the majority of the brands are founded by women, who belong to the vast audience traditional skincare products are marketed to.

They have first-hand experience with the frustration of not being able to find the right products, which end up being a waste of time and money.

Whether we like it or not, every aspect of our lives is personalized at this point. Customization is everywhere. It’ll eventually take over your skincare routine too. Why wait?

Read Next: Do Professional Facials Really Work?

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