The Best Custom Skin-Care Brands Cater to Your Biggest Concerns
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With so many cleansers, moisturizers, and face serums on the shelves, it can be hard to know which products are right for you. That’s where the best custom skin-care brands come in. Not only will custom formulas cater to your skin type, preferences, and concerns but they’ll also give you access to prescription-strength actives that would normally require a doctor’s visit—not to mention time spent in the waiting room that you’ll never get back.
Whether you’re looking for a prescription-strength serum to minimize fine lines, a personalized body wash, or a skin trio tailored to rosacea or acne, we’ve got you covered with custom skin care brands that do it all. It’s never been easier to take great care of your skin!
Best for Overall: Agency by Curology, $80 (every two months)
Best for Tretinoin: Ro Custom Rx, starting at $58 (every two months)
Best for Body Care: Function of Beauty Custom Body Wash, $36 ($29 with subscription)
Best Serum: Prose Custom Serum, $64 ($54 with subscription)
Best for Beginners: Proven Skin Care System, $130 (every three months)
Frequently Asked Questions
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How does custom skin care work?
How we test and review products
Agency by Curology
$80 Agency by Curology (Bimonthly subscription)
Why it’s worth it: Agency is like having a dermatologist on speed dial—except better, because it doesn’t involve talking on the phone. After sending photos of your skin and filling out an easy online form detailing your concerns, skin-care routine, and medical history, you’ll get matched with a licensed dermatology provider who can create a custom treatment plan for you. The pinnacle of your plan will be the Best of Beauty-winning Future Formula, a cream your dermatology provider will customize with ingredients—tretinoin, niacinamide, azelaic acid, to name a few options—they recommend for your skin’s needs.
Along with the cream, you'll also get (optional!) recommendations for other products from Agency’s lineup—the brand offers a customizable eye balm and dark spot corrector and non-personalized options like a sunscreen and a hydrating serum—and advice on how to use them. Then, as you use your formula, you can message your provider with any questions or concerns and they can tailor your prescription from there.
Agency requires a subscription, which means you’ll get a refill of your Future Formula every two months, but you can cancel any time.
Tester feedback from contributor Devon Abelman
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“Agency basically provides you with an all-in-one serum that changes as your skin improves. It's like having a dermatologist and cosmetic chemist at your fingertips, which is my dream come true. Everything is easy to navigate while being incredibly inclusive, respectful, and private.”
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Subscription required: yesCost: $80 every two months
Ro
$58 Ro (Bimonthly subscription)
Why it’s worth it: Ro Custom Rx is one of the best ways to get a prescription retinoid over the counter because its primary ingredient is tretinoin—a vitamin A derivative that requires a prescription. While Agency’s Future Formula can include tret, this one is based around it, but you can cater the formula’s strength and other ingredients to target your specific skin goals (preventing fine lines, reducing acne, or fading dark spots, to name a few).
After a short questionnaire about your skin goals, you’ll share medical history with a doctor or nurse practitioner who will help you figure out which ingredients—and their strengths—are right for your skin. Then, they compile those into a tretinoin-based cream. Your practitioner can easily tailor the treatment to address other skin concerns you have, like dryness or discoloration too, so you can streamline your routine and (always a bonus) save time.
Tester feedback from contributor Siena Gagliano
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“Ro is my favorite telehealth service to use across the board for many healthcare concerns. The Custom Rx specifically, though, has been a game changer for my skin. I started at a low dose with a formula filled with ceramides and humectants and—along with the Enriching Cream—I haven’t had any irritation so far.”
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Subscription required: yesCost: starting at $58 every two months
Function of Beauty
Why it’s worth it: We came for Function of Beauty’s personalized hair care—the brand’s genesis—but stayed for the customized body products. You can get a body wash or lotion tailored to you and all you have to do is take a fun quiz. For both products, the quizzes ask for the same information: how you describe your skin (balanced, dry, or very dry), which fragrance you want, how strong you want the fragrance, and which color you want the formula to come in.
Plus, the wash and lotion both come in generously sized, 16-ounce pump bottles, and they’re free of potential allergens like parabens or dyes—a plus for those with sensitive skin. To make sure you never run out, you can sign up for a subscription and customize how often your products arrive at your doorstep.
Tester feedback from shopping market editor Angela Trakoshis
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“I jumped in the shower, and with just one pump of the body wash on my loofah — holy bubbles! The lather was so foamy, and the aroma filled my shower, smelling like I just walked into a peach orchard. The sunflower seed oil in the formula helps retain moisture in the skin while the betaine (sugar-beet extract) helps give the body that baby-soft feeling.
Once I was out of the shower, it was time to moisturize. I took one pump of the lotion and began to rub it into my skin. Just like the body wash, its scent was exactly what I had imagined, and one pump was all I needed. There was no white cast, and the argan oil and squalane in the formula worked together to moisturize my skin from head-to-toe. I felt as soft as a high-end bath towel until my next shower, where you better believe I repeated this process. This duo will be in my bathroom until I get the last drop out of each of the bottles.”
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Subscription required: noCost: $36 for a one time purchase or a subscription sent every two, three, or four months
Prose
Why it’s worth it: Prose also started with personalized hair products, but you don’t want to sleep on its skin care, especially the Custom Face Serum. It won’t include prescription-level ingredients, but it instead combines over-the-counter actives, like bakuchiol, vitamin C, and peptides, to solve your skin problems with one single bottle rather than multiple serums and creams.
To get your formula, you fill out a questionnaire that asks about your skin type, concerns, daily habits, where you live (your climate impacts your skin too), and your fragrance and texture preferences. Finally, it’ll show you the key ingredients in your formula and what skin ailments they’re tackling, along with a full ingredient list. Voila! You’ve got a serum entirely based on what your skin needs right now.
Tester feedback from commerce editor Sarah Han
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"I'm all about serums that deliver and maintain hydration via multiple ingredients. Of course, we all adore hyaluronic acid, but my Prose Custom Serum formula also contains bakuchiol, glycerin, allantoin, and reishi mushroom to speed up cell turnover, reduce transepidermal water loss (TEWL), and boost elasticity. My skin instantly looks hydrated and bouncier, and the texture is silky and divine. All wins in my (skin-care) book."
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Subscription required: noCost: $64 or $54 if you subscribe
Proven
Why it’s worth it: With so many skin care products available, it can be hard to know what to bring into your medicine cabinet and what to leave on the shelves. (Do you actually need a toner? When should you use an exfoliant?) That’s why Proven’s three-step custom skin care regimen is a good option for anyone trying to create a routine they can stick to and feel confident in. The set includes only the basics: a cleanser, daytime moisturizer with SPF, and nighttime moisturizer.
Customizing your formulas involves a quick quiz to identify your skin concerns and how often you experience them—for example, if you choose redness as a concern, it’ll ask you how often you experience it and if you have any diagnosed conditions, like rosacea or eczema, that you know cause it. Then, you get to see exactly how each of three products is transformed into your personal skin hero. And if any of them turn out to not be a fit, you can get a reformulation within 30 days.
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Subscription required: yesSubscription cost: $200 on your first order, then $130 on subsequent orders
It depends on the company: Some brands have you take a quiz from the get-go to determine which products you need in your routine and which ingredients and formula types should make up those products. Other brands have you choose an individual product, like a body wash, and take a short quiz to customize it to your skin’s needs and your personal preferences. And for brands that offer prescription ingredients, like tretinoin, you’ll also be assigned a dermatology provider to review your skin’s needs.
Most custom skin care brands offer (or require) some sort of subscription model, but you can usually cancel any time. If you choose the subscription, you’ll get a refill of your product on a regular basis so you never have to worry about running out.
When Allure tests a product, our editors look at it from every angle to best serve you. We review ingredients, scrutinize brand claims, and, when necessary, examine peer-reviewed scientific and medical studies. In addition to testing each and every product that's included in every review, we rely on experts who shape their fields, including dermatology, cosmetic chemistry, and medicine, to help us vet the ingredients and formulas.
For our list of the best custom skin care, we considered each product's performance across five primary categories: product ingredients and efficacy, packaging, fragrance, texture, and product wear. Every product was determined to have excelled in each category by our editorial team, which is composed of in-house writers and editors as well as contributors—along with special consideration from dermatologists. To learn more information on our reporting and testing processes, read our complete reviews process and methodology page.
A beauty product is a personal purchase. You might be searching for a face cream to address persistent dryness or a new nail product to add to your Sunday self-care routine; you may simply be browsing around for the latest launches to hit the hair market. No matter what you seek or your individual needs and concerns, Allure wants to ensure that you love anything we recommend in our stories. We believe that having a diverse team of writers and editors—in addition to the wide range of outside testers and industry experts we regularly call upon—is essential to reaching that goal.
After all, can we really say a skin care product is the "best" for people over 50 if the only testers we've solicited opinions from folks who have yet to hit 30? Can we honestly deem a high-end diffuser worthy of your hard-earned cash if it's never been tested on curls? We're proud that our staff spans a wide range of ages, skin tones, hair textures, genders, and backgrounds, which means that we are able to fairly assess any beauty product that comes into the beauty closet.
Check out more skincare faves, handpicked by the Allure team:
10 Best Sunscreens for Mature Skin That Protect and Plump Skin All at Once
9 Best Retinal Serums and Creams to Level Up Your Retinoid Routine
11 Best Lotions for Dry, Itchy Skin That Provide Immediate Relief
9 Best Barrier Repair Creams to Calm and Protect Stressed Skin
Done reading? Now step inside Paris Hilton's high-tech wellness and beauty spa.
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