Pictures may be worth a thousand words, but selfies are worth a skin care overhaul—at least when artificial intelligence is involved.
For Neutrogena, the global skin care brand, AI-powered face scanning technology is providing an innovative means of interacting with customers. Skin360, a free service Neutrogena launched in 2020, scans a user’s selfie and scores their skin health based on six key factors, such as dark spots, wrinkles, and smoothness.
The service suggests ingredients to address identified problem areas (vitamin C for dark circles, for instance), as well as Neutrogena products to help users achieve healthier skin based on data provided by the user. Neutrogena sees its tool as a way for consumers to track their complexion over time. “It helps you establish your everyday routine as your skin changes with the season or with lifestyle or hormonal changes—it gives you the opportunity to reassess your total regimen,” Desiree Dowe, director of the innovation team—called Future of Skin Health, Beauty and Technology—at Neutrogena parent company Kenvue, told Fortune.
AI technology is being adopted across a broad swath of non-tech industries, from grocery products to window cleaning. And in recent years, the skin care industry has latched on. Cetaphil, L’Oréal, and Estée Lauder all have services similar to Skin360 that analyze a user’s photo and recommend a skin care routine (using all of their own products, of course).
Neutrogena intends for Skin360 to democratize dermatological care by making it easier for users to get information about their own skin and the products that could address their concerns, and to position Neutrogena as a leader in skin care technology.
Neutrogena doesn’t claim that Skin360 is an alternative to seeing a doctor for skin-related medical concerns, and experts Fortune spoke to stressed that no consumer face-scanning app should be relied upon for that purpose. But as a tool for connecting people with the right products for day-to-day skin care, Skin360 highlights how AI technology is changing the practices of established businesses like Neutrogena.
Kenvue doesn’t disclose how much in revenue Skin360 has contributed to the company, nor how much Neutrogena does, for that matter. But its “Skin, Health, and Beauty” segment, which includes Neutrogena among other companies like Aveeno and Rogaine, contributed $4.38 billion in sales in 2023, representing 28% of overall sales.
How it works
Neutrogena worked alongside Taiwan-based AI and augmented reality tech provider Perfect Corp to build Skin360. Perfect’s smartphone apps allows users to virtually try on makeup, edit their facial features in photos, remove acne from images, and more. For Skin360, Perfect’s technology scans selfies using a convolutional neural network, a type of machine learning that finds patterns in images. Simultaneously, an algorithm built by Neutrogena’s former parent company Johnson & Johnson recommends the correct products based on the findings. At the time of launch, Johnson & Johnson owned Neutrogena, but the conglomerate has since spun out its consumer health business to independent company Kenvue.
To analyze an image, Skin360 looks at more than 100,000 photo pixels to analyze a user’s skin. Training data included more than 10,000 images of faces—varying genders, ethnicities, skin types, and ages—in more than 10 types of lighting. To determine the accuracy of the AI-generated scores, Neutrogena’s imaging scientists manually graded a statistically significant number of the images against a dermatology grading system called the Griffiths scale, Dowe said. Neutrogena found “significant correlation” between the two scores. Skin360 has analyzed more than 1 million facial images to date, according to the company.
While the website doesn’t save user images, it does email a report with scores and product recommendations to individuals. By continuing to use the service over time, consumers can also track whether the use of Neutrogena’s recommended products improves their skin.
Personalized skin care is ‘not there yet’
The spread of AI face scanners across cosmetics companies reflects a broader push toward personalized skin care—a more tailored shopping experience or custom-made products, for example.
McKinsey & Company found in 2021 that 71% of consumers expect personalization in shopping. In 2023, 75% of shoppers said they would pay more for a personalized experience, according to a survey from Bolt, a software company for e-commerce transactions. Yves Saint Laurent’s beauty business sells a device created by parent company L’Oréal that mixes custom lipstick shades, for example. Last year, Neutrogena partnered with vitamin company Nourished to 3D-print gummy supplements for individuals based on their Skin360 results. Neutrogena’s partnership with Nourished is coming to an end, and the skin care company is now selling Neutrogena-branded vitamins in stores.
But while companies are experimenting in personalization, and it’s “one of the big goals in medicine, we’re sort of not there yet,” dermatologist and researcher Raj Chovatiya told Fortune. There are questions about how tools like Skin360 fit into the way dermatologists work, he said.
Chovatiya says apps like Skin360 shouldn’t replace seeing a dermatologist (Kenvue’s Dowe agrees). The best-case scenario, Chovatiya said, is for patients to perform their skin analysis at home and then bring the app’s list of recommended products to an appointment. Dermatologists—who have greater context about a patient’s skin history—can then talk them through the options and direct them away from ingredients they have reacted badly to in the past.
“It’s partially a marketing strategy too,” Chovatiya said about Neutrogena’s service. “I like the idea of trying to connect people to the right kinds of products for their skin,” but it’s best utilized “when done in conjunction with an actual dermatologist.”
Bijan Safai, chair of the New York Medical College’s department of dermatology, sees Skin360 as primarily a sales tool. “There are other factors I hope these companies are taking into consideration,” he told Fortune. “Infection can make skin look different, for example.” If Neutrogena identifies an infection as acne and recommends a product, it could do more harm than good to patients, he said.
At the same time, similar pattern recognition technology has the potential to help visually identify infections like shingles and rashes. Mobile apps like Ada Health are doing exactly that. When used as a diagnostic tool, AI “is not 100% accurate at this point, but there may be a time when technology is smarter than humans, and that is coming,” Safai said.
Abandoned hardware
Neutrogena’s AI skin analysis service has evolved over the years. The project originally launched in 2018 with a separate phone attachment. The SkinScanner device, available at launch for $50 and then increased to $60, anchored to a smartphone camera to provide up-close images of a user’s skin that were comparable to photos taken with high-end dermatological devices. SkinScanner incorporated 12 high-powered LED lights, a 30-times magnification lens, and a moisture sensor to read hydration levels. An accompanying app under the same Skin360 name tracked progress and recommended products.
But in 2020, Neutrogena ditched its hardware. Skin360 is now a website service rather than an app, and it analyzes an image of the whole face instead of magnified close-ups. Analysis is now five times faster than the original app, completed within an average of one second, according to the company. At the time, Neutrogena cited “valuable insight into what consumers wanted” as a reason for the strategy shift.
“It made it a lot more accessible to users who could use the power of their smartphone rather than having to buy a separate device,” Dowe told Fortune.
As a comparatively inexpensive skin care brand, Neutrogena might have excluded some of its customer base by requiring the purchase of an attachment. And as a free service, Skin360 is able to reach a broader audience of potential customers for Neutrogena products.
The selfie-based analysis has also allowed Neutrogena to expand into retail locations like Walmart. As part of a limited promotion, 1,500 Walmart stores displayed a QR code for Skin360 so shoppers could scan their skin in the makeup aisle. Neutrogena also offers Skin360 via the Walmart website for online shoppers.
