How Skin Bliss decides whether a product fits your skin

What does a Skin Bliss score measure?

A Skin Bliss score measures what a product's ingredient list is likely to do for skin, and your match, the main score, measures how well that formula fits your own skin.

We built Skin Bliss to answer one question: does this product fit your skin? Say you want a halal, cruelty-free cleanser for dry, acne-prone skin with eczema. There are far too many cleansers to check one by one, and marketing claims often promise more than a formula can do.

Your match covers the skin side of that search. It's the percentage the app shows for a product, based on your skin type, your sensitivity and the concerns in your profile. Halal and cruelty-free are lifestyle checks. The app shows them next to the match, and they never change it.

Next to the match, the app also shows the product's score for your skin type and for each concern it may help or worsen, with the ingredients behind each. These scores compare the product with a reference group of similar products, such as moisturizers with moisturizers. Efficiency and Quality describe the formula itself, so they read the same for every user.

Behind all of these, Skin Bliss breaks each product down into its ingredients and checks the formula against published ingredient research and EU cosmetics regulation. We built these ingredient rules with input from skincare professionals, and every product goes through them the same way.

What goes into your match?

Your Skin Bliss match uses your skin type, whether your skin is sensitive, and the concerns in your profile, such as acne, redness, eczema or rosacea.

The better a formula suits your skin type, the higher your match. A formula that targets your concerns pushes it up, and one that may aggravate them pulls it down. If your skin is sensitive, formulas that suit sensitive skin do better.

Your skin type is dry, oily, combination or normal.

Some things shown next to the match never change it: lifestyle choices such as vegan or fragrance-free, the ingredients you mark to avoid or add to your favorites, your routine goals, and the Efficiency and Quality scores.

The Skin Bliss quiz builds this profile, in the app or on the web at getskinbliss.com/quiz. It covers six skin dimensions: oil balance, which sets your skin type, plus sensitivity, elasticity, acne, tone and texture. It also lists the skin concerns your answers point to, and it asks the same questions and scores them the same way as the app.

Save your web result to a Skin Bliss account and the app opens with that profile, so every match uses your skin type, sensitivity and concerns from then on. When your skin changes, take the quiz again.

Read more: how to find your skin type at home; sensitive skin versus sensitised skin; rosacea causes and ingredients; eczema causes and ingredients

What do the skin-type and concern scores compare?

Each Skin Bliss skin-type or concern score compares a product with a reference group of similar products, such as moisturizers with moisturizers, for one skin type or one concern at a time.

Take a moisturizer with a dry-skin score of 30. It suits dry skin better than at least 30% of the moisturizers it's compared with, and most moisturizers score higher for dry skin. Concern scores read the same way: the app describes each one as better than a share of similar products.

Picture six cleansers lined up from least to most suitable for dry skin. The first sits at the bottom even if nothing in it harms dry skin, because every other cleanser suits dry skin better. The fifth has only one cleanser above it, so it sits near the top.

Your match is a different number, made for your whole profile. Don't read it as a rank within the category.

Read more: what dry skin lacks and how to care for it

How does Skin Bliss estimate concentration?

Skin Bliss estimates how much of each ingredient a product likely contains from where the ingredient sits on the list and from how much of it products usually contain, because the dose often decides whether an ingredient helps or harms.

For some ingredients a tiny amount does nothing. For others, a tiny amount already makes a difference. So we look at what each ingredient does and, as far as the label allows, how much of it is there.

Labels rarely print amounts, but the main ingredients on a list run from the largest amount to the smallest. When an ingredient's effect depends on the dose, the score takes the estimate into account.

Read more: what a formulation is and why the whole recipe matters; which niacinamide strength does what; the EU retinol limit and what changes for shoppers in 2027

What makes one product fit better than another?

One product fits your skin better than another when the balance of its formula favors ingredients that help your skin type and concerns over ones that may work against them.

The app colors scores from red at the low end, through amber, to green at the top. A product can land on the red side with nothing in it flagged as a problem, simply because it has fewer helpful ingredients than the products further along. Two made-up cleansers show how:

• A basic cleanser with water, a cleansing agent and a preservative. It cleans, and nothing in it is wrong for skin. It just doesn't add anything.
• A richer cleanser that adds glycerin, niacinamide and ceramides. These help the skin, so it scores higher.

Four real cleansers scored for dry skin show the same pattern. As the score rises, the balance tips from ingredients that can dry the skin toward ingredients that help it.

• Low

  Lowest score

  What tipped it

  • Glycerol, butylene glycol, sucrose and sodium hyaluronate moisturize, and Laminaria saccharina extract helps prevent the skin from drying out.
  • Flagged: sodium laureth sulfate and salicylic acid can worsen dry skin, and the product is water based.
• 40

  Score 40

  What tipped it

  • Glycerol moisturizes. Palmitic acid, glyceryl distearate and glyceryl stearate are occlusives that prevent the skin from drying out.
  • Flagged: the product is water based, and salicylic acid regulates sebum production and can worsen dry skin.
• 60

  Score 60

  What tipped it

  • Glycerol and propylene glycol moisturize, five ingredients soothe and calm the skin, and three can relieve itchy skin.
  • Flagged: witch hazel regulates sebum production and can worsen dry skin.
• 99

  Score 99

  What tipped it

  • The positives include occlusives such as rosa canina, jojoba oil, argan kernel oil and shea butter ethyl esters, and ingredients that improve dry skin, such as sunflower seed extract, apricot kernel oil, borage seed oil and calendula extract.

How any of them behaves still depends on your skin, and on how accurately your profile describes it.

Read more: how to choose a gentle cleanser for your skin type

What do the Efficiency and Quality scores add?

The Efficiency and Quality scores describe the formula itself. They're the same for every user, and they sit next to your match without changing it.

Efficiency measures the amount and likely concentration of active ingredients known to benefit skin concerns, compared with similar products. The app shows it as a percentage. It's most useful when two products have a similar match. A higher number isn't always better for you, though: a gentle cleanser is meant to clean, and reactive skin often does better with fewer actives.

Quality asks how well the product is formulated: what share of its ingredients are rated beneficial, and whether any of them is one that EU regulators consider harmful. The app shows Quality as a tier.

Allergens count against a product on its sensitivity and concern scores. They don't affect Quality.

Read more: what the Efficiency Score measures and when a low one is fine

Do lifestyle filters and saved ingredients change the score?

No, lifestyle choices and saved ingredients never change your Skin Bliss match, even though the app shows them next to it and can filter search results by them.

Lifestyle choices are checks you switch on, such as vegan, halal, gluten-free, pregnancy-safe, fragrance-free or silicone-free. The app marks any product that conflicts with one of your ingredient-based choices, and you can use the same choices as search filters. Cruelty-free status comes from the brand's certifications, because an ingredient list can't show how a product was tested.

If Pregnancy-safe is one of your choices, the app flags products that contain retinoids such as retinol and retinal. The flag goes by ingredient and ignores dose, so even a trace of retinol trips it.

Mark an ingredient to avoid and the app points it out on every product that contains it. Search can also hide every product with one of your avoided ingredients. Favorite ingredients get highlighted the same way. None of this moves your match.

Read more: what the Lifestyle Match flags and why; fragrance ingredients in skincare; the ingredients that most often set reactive skin off

Does the match check my whole routine?

No, the Skin Bliss match judges one product against your profile, and clashes between products are checked separately in the routine tools.

The Product Compatibility Checker looks for ingredient clashes, overlapping actives and irritation triggers across the products you use together. Shelf Analysis runs the same kind of check from one photo of your whole shelf. The Routine Builder also checks for interactions on days when products overlap.

A product can earn a high match on its own and still clash with a strong active you already use. Before you add something new, check it against your routine too.

Read more: finding clashes across a whole routine; which of 16 common actives to mix and which to separate; ingredient pairings that work together or clash

What does a low score mean?

A low Skin Bliss match means the formula does little for your skin type and concerns, or contains something that may aggravate one of them.

A solid staple without ingredients for your concerns can score low even when nothing in it is a problem. A formula with something that may aggravate a concern you selected scores low too, such as retinol when rosacea is in your profile. An ingredient you marked to avoid doesn't lower the score. The app flags it on the product instead.

None of this makes a product you love a bad product. If your skin is happy with it, that record outranks the score. Open the product in the app to see which ingredients were flagged and whether the reason applies to you.

If your dermatologist recommended a product that Skin Bliss rates poorly, trust your dermatologist. They see your skin in person and know your medical history. Take the flagged ingredients to your next appointment and ask why this product suits you anyway.

Read more: how to test a routine change over 4 to 6 weeks

Can brands pay for a better score?

No, brands cannot pay Skin Bliss for a better score or for a place in the app.

Skin Bliss is independent of the beauty industry. No brand has any say in the scoring or in the order of search results, which by default follow each product's scores for your skin type and concerns.

The rules work the same way for every product and every user. Two people with the same profile see the same match for the same product.

How is Skin Bliss different from Yuka and other scanners?

Skin Bliss checks whether a formula fits your own skin profile, while Yuka rates the health impact of a product's ingredients.

Yuka's cosmetics score comes from the ingredients in the product, and Yuka says the score doesn't consider how well a product works. Skin Bliss asks whether the formula suits your skin type, your sensitivity and your concerns, so two people can see different matches for the same product.

INKEEDecoder, the site formerly called INCIDecoder, explains the ingredients in a list in plain language. Skin Bliss explains ingredients too, then checks the finished product against your profile.

The Skin Bliss catalog holds 150,000+ products. For anything outside it, paste or photograph the ingredient list and it gets the same analysis, in any language. The app itself is available in 14 languages.

What can't a score tell you?

A Skin Bliss score can't tell you how your own skin will react to a product, and it can't diagnose a skin condition.

The ingredient list on your packaging is the source of truth. When you photograph a label, the app reads the list from the photo, and a blurry or cut-off photo can drop ingredients and shift the score. Formulas also change over time and can differ between countries, while the catalog keeps one ingredient list per product. If a score looks off, trust the label in your hand or the brand's official listing.

Concentration is an estimate, and evidence about an ingredient isn't the same as clinical testing of the finished product. The same ingredient can help in one product and irritate in another, depending on its concentration, the rest of the formula, pH and your own skin.

Skin Bliss scores skincare and body care, such as shower gels and hand creams. Haircare, fragrance, deodorant, shaving products and most makeup get no match.

A score can't confirm an allergy or promise a result. Keep your profile current, and see a dermatologist for any skin condition.

Read more: how to patch test a new product; when to see a dermatologist

Who builds and checks the method?

Skin Bliss co-founders Dr. Maria Otworowska and Dr. Marvin Uhlmann build and check the method, with input from advisers who work as skincare chemists, formulators, dermatologists, pharmacists and skin therapists.

Maria holds a PhD in Computational Cognitive Science and AI, and Marvin a PhD in Computational Cognitive Neuroscience and Machine Learning. Marvin reviews every change to how the scores are weighted.

Skin Bliss launched in beta in 2020, and Skin Bliss SIA, which builds the app for iPhone and Android in the EU, was incorporated in 2021. We keep refining the method.

Skin reacts to far more than an ingredient list, so some scores will miss. When you think one does, tell us, especially if you work with skin professionally: email us at the address below. If a product's ingredients, category or name look wrong, tap Actions on its page in the app and choose Report mistake.

Read more: the evidence sources behind Skin Bliss ingredient ratings