9 Beauty Brands That Offer Personalized Skin Care Products

Best Moisturizer: Function of Beauty

Pros & Cons

Why It’s a Top Pick

Function of Beauty offers a wide range of personalized skin care products, including serums, cleansers, and moisturizers. To build your customized product formula, take a short but targeted online quiz to select skin care priorities like reducing breakouts or calming redness. All moisturizers are created on the base of three main ingredients: tsubaki oil (also known as camellia oil) to hydrate, squalane to seal in moisture, and vitamin E to protect your skin from external elements — the base to lock in that hydration. The algorithm will then recommend specific ingredients like vitamin B5 to attract more moisture and betaine for plumping.

Your custom formula will be packaged fragrance-free or in a refreshing cucumber and citrus scent. You can opt to purchase items one time, or if you’re happy with the product and its results, you can subscribe. Subscribers get free shipping and other perks like members-only pricing, early access to new products and testing, and exclusive colors and fragrances from the company’s custom hair and body lines. 

Need a lighter moisturizer formula to accommodate the summer humidity or a more brightening one to target dullness in the winter? Adjust your formula before the next billing cycle or try a new one by retaking the quiz. While Function of Beauty is pricier than similar services, the products are 100 percent vegan- and cruelty-free and come in a beautiful, pastel-hued bottle. While there are no refunds or returns, you can opt to have the company reprocess your formula within 30 days.

Best Technology: Proven

Pros & Cons

Why It’s a Top Pick

Founded by a trio of Stanford-based doctors — a data scientist/computational physicist, an aesthetic dermatologist, and an award-winning molecular biologist, Proven uses a combination of AI technology and machine learning to match consumers with cutting-edge, custom skin care products. The group created the Skin Genome Project, the world’s largest beauty database, which aggregates millions of data points, from academic studies about top ingredients to consumer product reviews, that are then paired with customer inputs and the company’s product line. 

To discover your personalized formula, take a detailed, 10-minute questionnaire that covers common skin issues like acne, aging, and hyperpigmentation, as well as accounts for environmental and lifestyle factors like water consumption, sleep, diet, sun exposure, and ZIP code. The system will then recommend products made with specific ingredients to address those concerns, like green tea extract to diminish the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.

While there’s no option to add or opt out of certain ingredients in your specific formulas, all products are vegan and cruelty-free, and customers receive free shipping. You can purchase one or all of the recommended products, either as one-offs or as a bundle, with a discount for subscribers.

Best DIY Serum: Skin Inc.

Pros & Cons

Why It’s a Top Pick

With an extensive product line that includes custom serums as well as overnight masks, hand creams, exfoliating peels, gift sets, and beauty tools like rollers and light therapy glasses, Skin Inc. is a one-stop shop for your personalized skin care needs. To receive your tailored formula, take an online, AI-driven self-diagnostic quiz to document your age, top skin concerns, lifestyle stressors, daily habits like sleep hours, water and alcohol consumption, and travel.

Each My Daily Dose serum comes with a sleek, quartz bottle and three personalized boosters to mix and match your formula as needed. So, if you’ve had a long-haul flight or are not getting enough sleep, you can add more coenzyme Q10 to your base formula to energize fatigued skin. Similarly, a booster like the licorice serum can be used situationally to help calm hormonal and stress-related breakouts.

All products are paraben- and scent-free — great for sensitive skin types — and you can retake the quiz as your skin care concerns fluctuate due to lifestyle factors like pregnancy or increased sun exposure. While some products can be purchased directly from the site, all bespoke serums require a subscription. At $95, the customized serum is expensive, but customers receive free shipping on orders over $75 and can earn rewards like access to exclusive product previews and points toward future purchases.

Best Topical Treatment: Curology

Pros & Cons

Why It’s a Top Pick

Curology offers a wide range of products ranging from a nourishing vegan lip balm to cleansers, moisturizers, sunscreens, body washes, and topical acne treatments. Fill out an online questionnaire to outline your skin care goals and concerns like excessive oil, redness, or lack of firmness. You’ll also be able to list any current medications and conditions that could interact with ingredients to ensure that your Curology product is the safest for you. These details, along with images you submit of your face, will be reviewed by a licensed provider in your state and used to create custom skin care recommendations. 

While the products require a subscription to purchase, Curology offers a 30-day free trial to new customers, who only have to cover the $4.95 shipping cost for a sample of the brand’s custom, prescription-based topical treatments. Anti-acne treatment Custom Formula includes three personalized active ingredients ranging from tretinoin to azelaic acid to calm breakouts and reduce redness, while the newly introduced anti-aging formula Future-Proof may include tranexamic acid and niacinamide to promote glowing skin and minimize dark spots and fine lines. After the 30 day trial and any adjustments to their unique formula, customers can opt to receive a full-sized, 24-gram bottle for $29.95/month ($59.90 per 2-month subscription). And because the items are medically approved, you can use your health savings account (HSA) or flexibility spending account (FSA) to purchase products.

Best Department Store Brand: Clinique iD

Pros & Cons

Why It’s a Top Pick

With Clinique iD, you can add custom boosters to the brand’s bestselling skin care products, like the iconic yellow-hued Dramatically Different Moisturizing lotion. While you can purchase the product online, the product is also available at the brand’s makeup counters at select department stores across the country, which makes it easy to have an in-person consultation, ask any questions you have about ingredients, or even sample before taking home. Select a base lotion, gel, or jelly, then add up to five concentrated booster cartridges of your choosing.

Options range from a calming lactobacillus probiotic ferment to soothe irritated or inflamed skin to an anti-aging whey protein designed to smooth the appearance of lines and wrinkles. All boosters come in Clinique’s signature candy-colored packaging, and in addition to in-person consultations, the company offers a free, 30-second face scan and a short online skin care quiz to identify issues like dehydration, fine lines, and redness and match clients with the best boosters and products.

While you don’t need a subscription to purchase Clinique iD, the company only offers this one personalized product, and some boosters are frequently out of stock on its website. But at just $41 — and less than $10 for the add-on concentrates — it’s an affordable way to customize your skin care regimen.

Best Beauty Oils: The Buff

Pros & Cons

Why It’s a Top Pick

The Buff offers two customizable skin care products: body oil and face oil. Its philosophy? Your natural skin is better than makeup, and natural, cruelty-free oils give your skin the ultimate fresh, dewy glow. The brief online diagnostic quiz identifies your specific skin care issues, like redness, excessive oil, and fine lines, then creates a recommended formula from an inventory of over 100 natural oils — think jojoba Oil to regulate breakouts and black cumin seed oil for calming irritated skin. 

Most traditional moisturizers and serums are water-based, so they hydrate skin by drawing water into the skin. When applied on top of those products, an oil seals in that moisture by creating a protective layer between your face and external elements like pollution and ultraviolet rays, meaning your skin will stay hydrated for longer. 

All oils come in a sophisticated, four-ounce bottle labeled with your name or monogram. And the brand’s aesthetics are just as clean as its products, made with all vegan ingredients. Purchase any product without committing to a subscription via the easy-to-navigate website, or switch up your formula whenever you’d like by retaking the quiz and changing ingredient preferences.

Best Diagnostics: SkinCeuticals

Pros & Cons

Why It’s a Top Pick

One of the most respected brands on the market, SkinCeuticals can help you elevate your personalized skin care routine with Custom D.O.S.E. (Diagnostic Optimization Serum Experience), the company’s proprietary evaluation service to develop a bespoke corrective serum. During your 10-minute in-person consultation, a participating dermatologist or certified skin care provider will ask you about your specific concerns, whether that’s plumping aging skin or managing hormonal breakouts. Then, they’ll whip up your special formula in real time in just five minutes using a combination of ingredients ranging from retinol for exfoliating dull skin to glycolic acid for brightening overall tone and smoothing fine lines.

Each one-ounce bottle comes with a personalized label and lasts approximately three months when applied once or twice daily. Note that the experience is only available in conjunction with certified providers in select markets, so it is not the best choice for those who don’t live near a store offering this service.

At a suggested retail of $195, the experience isn’t cheap, but for those seeking in-person dermatological advice and medical-grade products, it could be worth the investment. D.O.S.E can also be combined with other in-office treatments like chemical peels and light-based therapies to treat concerns like discoloration and scarring.

Best Custom Serum: Murad

Pros & Cons

Why It’s a Top Pick

Murad brand brings customized, dermatologist-backed skin care to your doorstep with its custom serum. The process begins with a photo of your face, which Murad’s sophisticated software will analyze to instantly identify concerns like uneven tone, dark spots, and fine lines. Take a short quiz to share additional factors like age, blue light exposure, and diet, and the brand will recommend tailored-to-you ingredients like vitamin C for brightening and licorice root extract for soothing.

You’ll have two fragrances to choose from; a calming formula with lavender, Italian bergamot, and eucalyptus, or an energizing one with grapefruit, mandarin, and white floral. Once the ingredients and fragrance are finalized, your formula will be mixed into a one-ounce bottle with a personalized label.

Murad also offers the option for a paid, online 25-minute consultation with a brand expert as well as a free list of additional products ranging from cleansers to masks and peels to incorporate into your home skin care routine. You can always retake the digital assessment and submit new photos to receive a new serum formula, too. And while at $69, the product is a bit pricier than other offerings, the customization process is thorough and worth the splurge. 

Most Comprehensive Screening: Pure Culture Beauty

Pros & Cons

Why It’s a Top Pick

Find your perfect formula with Pure Culture Beauty’s comprehensive, at-home skin test, available for purchase and included for free with one of the brand’s custom kit packages, which arrive in two to four business days. The two-part self-test takes about 15 to 20 minutes to complete. Used on the cheek and forehead, the first set of strips measures pH and the health of the skin barrier, which protects the skin from stressors like pollution and sun exposure. Then, dip the second set of strips into an activating liquid and place one against the cheek and the other against the forehead to measure your exact level of oiliness.

The company’s digital portal gives step-by-step instructions for entering test results and includes a short questionnaire about factors that may impact your skin, such as UV exposure and sleep. From there, the company will analyze the combined results and immediately recommend specific products and ingredients that match your results, like camellia oil to strengthen the skin barrier. 

Once you have your unique formula, you can choose from several custom products, including a moisturizer, serum, and cleanser, also available as a packaged bundle. The prices are affordable — particularly given the comprehensive diagnostic process — and each product comes in a pretty peach and white bottle with a personalized label and detailed use instructions. The at-home test is time-consuming and takes 15 to 20 minutes to complete and must be done before ordering products, so if looking for a quick custom skin fix, this may not be the best company for you.