How Personalization Is Redefining Skincare

Longevity beauty is clearly emerging as one of the industry’s strongest new categories—with a focus on preventative skincare and long-term skin health—and personalization is not far behind .

According to Mintel’s 2025 report, Personalization Trends Are Redefining the Beauty and Personal Care Industry, personalization is more than a buzzword; it reflects changing consumer expectations. Customers are increasingly seeking products tailored to specific beauty goals, from reducing fine lines and combating dryness to achieving a more even complexion. Mintel reports that 62% of U.S. beauty and personal care buyers are interested in hyper-personalized products, while 28% are willing to pay extra for them.

This is also evident in at-home skincare technology, which is moving toward more customizable, zone-specific treatments that let users target different areas of the face and body based on their individual needs. Philips’ latest LED device, ReAura, for example, allows zone-by-zone treatment, with options designed for the full face, the eye area, and the neck.

As Dr Paris Acharya, a London-based aesthetic doctor, explained to me by email, this shift is particularly relevant to longevity beauty. “Skincare,” she says, “is becoming increasingly personalized, evidence-based and focused on optimizing skin biology rather than simply slowing visible ageing.” The future, she believes, is not about finding one molecule that does everything, but about supporting the skin’s own biology so that it functions better over time through increasingly sophisticated combinations.

Dr Sam Bunting, leading cosmetic dermatologist and author of Flawless, believes this shift towards personalization reflects how much our knowledge regarding skin ageing has evolved. “Our understanding of skin ageing has advanced dramatically. Where before we talked about a few common features, such as wrinkles, pigmentation and sagging, we now better understand the many mechanisms that are the root cause of these ‘symptoms’,” she told me in an email.

Personalization And Category Convergence

This development is also shaping how beauty brands create and position their products in response to targeted beauty solutions, some of which are getting it just right.

CEO Yoojung Shin of Able C&C (MISSHA’s parent company) told me by email that luxury skincare demand today is moving along two key axes: personalization and category convergence. MISSHA, a company that has been at the forefront of establishing the concept of “Affordable Luxury”, sold more than 100 million units of its M Perfect Cover BB Cream in 2025.

She points out that skin condition is not universal. “It varies fundamentally by ethnicity, skin type, and age,” she explains, adding that consumers are increasingly moving beyond the idea of a single global product. Instead, “they expect segmented solutions and routines built around their specific profile, not the cosmetic localization of one formula.”

Beyond The Single Ingredient

Moving away from the one-size-fits-all approach, the focus on single ingredients and formulas is increasingly paving the way for a more bespoke attitude to beauty. It’s an interesting development, a departure from the traditional cycle of ingredient trends and single-molecule debates.

“I actually think we’re moving beyond the era of the single ‘hero ingredient’,” said Dr Paris. “The future of skincare isn’t about finding one molecule that does everything; it’s about supporting the skin’s own biology, so it functions better over time.”

Paris believes the most exciting innovations in the years ahead may not necessarily be the newest individual ingredients. “They’ll be the combinations that support the skin’s regenerative pathways,” she said.

As Bunting describes in Flawless, the future of skincare isn’t about looking younger—it’s about investing in your skin with intelligence, compassion and confidence. And no matter when you begin, your skin will respond.

The Importance Of Personalized Beauty

Dr Alka Patel, founder of The Million Hour Club, agrees and told me over email that a personalized approach to maintaining skin health and addressing how we age is fundamental because ageing is highly individual.

“I often say that a wrinkle is a consequence, not a cause. It tells me what I can see. It does not necessarily tell me why it developed,” she said. “This is where my longevity medicine background changes the conversation. I am interested in the person carrying the skin.”

Patel explains that this is where beauty is becoming really interesting because personalization is moving from questionnaires and product recommendations to actual biological data.

“AI-assisted imaging can already quantify changes in pigmentation, redness, texture, pores and wrinkles far more consistently than the human eye. At the same time, research is moving into genomics, proteomics, metabolomics and the skin microbiome,” she said. “The next leap, I think, comes when these different layers of information start talking to each other,” she concluded.

The Future Of Personalized Beauty: Designer Molecules

Joshua Britton, PhD, founder and CEO of Debut, concurs and believes that the transformation goes even further.

He tells me by email that AI, skin genomics, and biotechnology are transforming how we discover ingredients through a deep biological understanding of the root causes of aging, and how this enables scientists to create novel molecules with levels of precision and performance that were previously out of reach.

“The shift is also in creating single molecules that activate multiple pathways for multiple claims. The goal is no longer to combine several ingredients to address a variety of claims; it’s to create single, high-performing ingredients built to target multiple consumer needs at once. This is the era of designer molecules,” he says.

“Instead of starting with a naturally occurring molecule and testing what it might do, or relying on molecules derived from traditional chemistry, we begin with a specific biological pathway—for example, linked to skin tightening, barrier repair or hyperpigmentation—and design ingredients to precisely target it,” he says.

Debut’s AI platform and advanced genomic tools can then help predict how a molecule will interact with skin at the cellular level, including “activating biological pathways, influencing gene expression, and supporting long-term skin health.”

As our understanding of skin continues to evolve, so does the way we think about beauty, making it an exciting time for the industry. The implication? The pursuit of personalization may ultimately move beyond simply choosing the right product for an individual. It could begin to influence how ingredients are discovered and designed.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com