The research behind the Skin Advisor

Clinical guidelines and safety rules

• Guidelines of care for the management of acne vulgaris (2024)

  In use

  American Academy of Dermatology — Reynolds R. V. et al., J Am Acad Dermatol 90(5), 2024

  Used for: Acne ingredients (benzoyl peroxide, adapalene, salicylic acid) and when to see a doctor

  Licence: Journal article (cited, summarised in our own words)

• Acne vulgaris: management (NG198)

  In use

  National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), UK

  Used for: When to send someone to a dermatologist (urgent / refer / consider)

  Licence: NICE guidance (cited)

• Indian consensus on melasma management (2017)

  In use

  Pigmentary Disorders Society, India — Indian Journal of Dermatology

  Used for: Melasma and dark-spot advice, written for South Asian skin

  Licence: Open access article (cited)

• PRISM-ISF sunscreen consensus (2025)

  In use

  Indian dermatologists' Delphi consensus — open access in PubMed Central

  Used for: Sunscreen advice for hot, humid climates

  Licence: Open access article (cited)

• Cochrane Skin systematic reviews

  In use

  Cochrane

  Used for: How well melasma and acne treatments work, across many trials

  Licence: Abstracts (cited)

• EU Regulation 2024/996

  In use

  European Commission

  Used for: Safe limits: retinol max 0.3% on the face, alpha-arbutin max 2%

  Licence: EU law

• Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS) opinions

  In use

  European Commission

  Used for: Ingredient safety and strengths

  Licence: EU public documents

• Cosmetic Ingredient Review (CIR) safety reports

  In use

  Cosmetic Ingredient Review, USA

  Used for: Ingredient safety

  Licence: Cited

• OTC sunscreen monograph M020

  In use

  U.S. Food and Drug Administration

  Used for: Sunscreen filters

  Licence: Public domain

• Mercury in skin-lightening creams, Bangladesh (2025)

  In use

  Environment and Social Development Organization (ESDO), Bangladesh

  Used for: The fairness-cream question and the mercury warning

  Licence: NGO report (cited)

Where the questions come from

• Sensitive Scale-10 (SS-10)

  In use

  Misery L. et al., University of Brest, France; cut-offs: Legeas C. et al., Acta Dermato-Venereologica 2021

  Used for: Ten symptoms that measure sensitive skin; above 13 means sensitive

  Licence: Published scale (cited)

• Fitzpatrick skin phototype

  In use

  Fitzpatrick T. B., Archives of Dermatology 1988

  Used for: The question on whether your skin burns or tans in the sun

  Licence: Published scale (cited)

Skin image datasets

• DermaCon-IN

  Used for testing

  Madarkar S. S. et al., NeurIPS 2025 Datasets and Benchmarks — Harvard Dataverse

  Used for: 5,450 images of Indian skin: we check how well our photo read works on brown skin and when it says to see a doctor

  Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

• Fitzpatrick 17k

  Being added

  Groh M. et al., CVPR Workshops 2021

  Used for: Checking it works equally well across skin tones

  Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

• ACNE04

  Being added

  Wu X. et al., Nankai University — ICCV 2019

  Used for: Grading acne as mild, moderate or severe

  Licence: Free for academic use (credited)

• FFHQ-Wrinkle

  Being added

  Moon J. et al., 2024 (on NVIDIA's FFHQ faces)

  Used for: Finding fine lines and wrinkles

  Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

• SCIN — Skin Condition Image Network

  Being added

  Ward A. et al., Google Research and Stanford Medicine — JAMA Network Open 2024

  Used for: Spotting when to see a doctor in everyday phone photos

  Licence: SCIN Data Use License

Tools and ingredient databases

• Google Gemini

  In use

  Google

  Used for: Reading the photo (with your permission); our own rules make the final call

  Licence: Google API terms

• MediaPipe Face Landmarker

  Being added

  Google

  Used for: Checking the photo is clear and finding each part of the face

  Licence: Apache 2.0

• Monk Skin Tone Scale

  Being added

  Monk E., Harvard University (with Google)

  Used for: Checking results are fair for every skin tone

  Licence: CC BY 4.0

• PubChem

  Being added

  U.S. National Library of Medicine (NIH)

  Used for: Matching other names of the same ingredient

  Licence: Public domain

• Open Beauty Facts

  Being added

  Open Beauty Facts contributors

  Used for: Filling in product ingredient lists

  Licence: ODbL / DbCL

• CosIng — EU cosmetic ingredient database

  In use

  European Commission

  Used for: Correct INCI names and functions

  Licence: EU database (cited)

The studies behind each ingredient

Strongest evidence first. Where evidence is weak, we say so.