So, you have a reasonable skincare budget, and you’re pretty in-the-know when it comes to the latest trends and hottest brands. But how personal are you getting with your products?
Have you ever thought about the fact that living in the mountains may mean you have harder water than someone living on the beach – or that living in a cold climate and using a heater can deeply impact your skin? Details like these can have a considerable effect on ingredients’ ability to do their jobs. Everyone knows that there’s no such thing as one-size-fits-all, and our body’s largest organ deserves so much better. It’s about time we reimagined the concept of skincare. Enter PROVEN: a personalized skincare line that uses award-winning AI to cater to your skin’s unique needs.
“Our mission is to give people good skin for life,” says Ming Zhao, co-founder of PROVEN.
How does it do that? Well, it starts with the founders’ innovative Skin Genome Project, the most comprehensive skincare database ever created – and the winner of MIT’s 2018 Artificial Intelligence Award. It’s an AI-powered database of over 20,200 ingredients, over 4,000 scientific journals, over 100,000 different products (luxury beauty, prescription, generic formulas, and more), over 8 million testimonials, and a plethora of statistics like water hardness, humidity level, and UV index of every city. It was developed with the primary purpose of removing the hype, nonsense, and trial-and-error that traditionally comes with finding the right skincare.
Accessing this endless abyss of knowledge is easier than it sounds. It begins with the Skin Genome Quiz (start here!), which was developed in part by the head of dermatology at Stanford University, Dr. Tyler Hollmig.
The quiz asks specific questions about your genetic background, your skin concerns, your sleep habits, and your fruit and veggie intake, just to name a few. Once you’ve completed the quiz, a sophisticated algorithm sifts through all of the data to hone in on the best ingredients for your skin. Then, those ingredients are married into custom formulas developed just for you, which can then be ordered at the click of a button. But – before they’re bottled up and shipped your way, they’re vetted by a real, live, human dermatologist to make sure everything is just right.
You ultimately receive a kit of three tailor-made products for $129.99 with an ongoing subscription: a gentle toning cleanser, a modern anti-pollution sunscreen that protects against both UV and blue light, and a restorative night cream to address your most critical concerns. It’s a comprehensive regimen that distills toners, essences, serums, oils, spot treatments, and all of the other excessive components of the modern-day routine into one easy, three-step process. The products are meant to last you about 60 days: the proper amount of time before your climate, routine, or skin concerns are bound to change in one way or another.
Needless to say, your skincare has come a long way. How did we get here? Here’s the PROVEN story.
The Renaissance
Zhao was inspired to change the game because she was frustrated with her own skincare experience. She had been working long, grueling hours in the finance industry when she realized her lifestyle was taking a serious toll on her complexion. But the department store options she turned to were an utter letdown.
“I’d spent a lot of money on products that promised miracles and didn’t deliver,” she says. “It wasn’t until I went to a specific, highly specialized skin expert who first assessed my skin and created products specifically formulated for me that I felt any difference.”
With the goal of making such a service available to everyone, she teamed up with her PROVEN co-founder, Amy Yuan, a computational physicist at Stanford University.
While Yuan was accomplishing such superhuman feats as breaking the world record for the largest computational simulation in science, at home she was experiencing major disappointment, failing to treat her skin condition: atopic dermatitis. With chronically red, itchy skin and seemingly nothing that could fix it, Yuan decided to put her skills to work. She set out to invent her own solution: an AI-powered database that could aggregate all the academic research that has ever been published on the condition, as well as every tidbit of anecdotal evidence, like product reviews that real skincare users were sharing on the Internet. And thus, the Skin Genome Project was born. From there, Zhao hopped on board – and putting their heads together, they expanded the database to include even more individual factors and insights. “I know that my skin is affected by travel, pregnancy, and personal stress,” Zhao notes as examples. “It’s inexplicable to me that nobody had thought to incorporate all that into what I actually use to care for my skin.” And so began the journey to craft physical products that would embody the information they had at their fingertips.
From Cyberspace to Reality
Zhao and Yuan knew they had something special. The technology was in high demand, and although competitors were itching to get their hands on the data, the women refused to sell. PROVEN was always about truth, Zhao explains. “We didn’t want this truth to die somewhere in the supply chain.” She believed that people deserved to know what went into finding their match.
Without sales, marketing, or branding experience, Zhao and Yuan knew that the roadblocks would be plentiful, to say the least. But they persevered against the odds, confident that they had something revolutionary. “What we’re doing is so advanced that it basically breaks the entire paradigm of how skincare works,” says Zhao. “The differentiation is in the products, in the philosophy behind it, and in the technology that supports it, and we’re so proud of that.” PROVEN officially launched in 2018.
Seeing 2020
PROVEN today offers the most effective skincare for your skin. Not just because the marketing lingo says so – because scientific research confirms it. But what really makes PROVEN work is the accessibility component. Although the science behind the brand is intricate and complex, the output is simple. Instead of bombarding users with a nine-step routine, PROVEN delivers an easy, three-category skincare set. And they take the same kind of intuitive approach to the formulas themselves.
Although the PROVEN system is at the forefront of technology, the ingredients are primarily rooted in nature, harnessing the time-tested power of high quality, clean, natural, plant-derived elements – and leaving behind such harsh chemicals as sulfates, parabens, and formaldehyde. They source skin superheroes like plant-based squalane, which studies have shown to be universally soothing and hydrating, and fermented sea kelp from the Oregon coast, which is anti-inflammatory and improves skin health over time.
Exemplifying just what makes PROVEN different, Zhao brings up another favorite ingredient: hyaluronic acid. “Hyaluronic acid is good for most people under most circumstances,” she says. “However, in the case where people have very dry skin and live in dry environments with less humidity, hyaluronic acid can actually draw moisture out of the skin and into the air.” Aside from the top-notch ingredients, it’s this kind of analytical thinking that separates PROVEN from other brands that make products to suit all people – without knowing anything about them.
The founders agreed from the start that our skin deserves the same kind of individual attention that we give to other key organs. It made no sense, they thought, to use a one model approach – which is why each PROVEN skincare set is specifically designed to last 45-60 days. PROVEN takes into account that our lifestyle, environment, and seasons all change – which means that our skin needs change, too. By maintaining real-time information, down to the UV index, air quality, and mineral levels of the water in your zip code, the individualized formulas are made to evolve as your skin fluctuates and your environment shifts, too. And as your skin adjusts to certain stronger ingredients, like retinoids for example, your next formula will increase the concentration to ensure peak effectiveness and tolerability.
Of course, none of it would matter if customers couldn’t see a difference. On the contrary, feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and Zhao notes that those with aging skin and sensitive skin have been especially vocal. “We use cutting-edge ingredients in high concentrations,” Zhao says. “People say they see a difference in the lessening of wrinkles and sagging skin and in the dewiness and softness of their skin.” And those with sensitivity concerns have reported a sense of being “seen” after feeling alienated by the beauty industry for decades.
What the Future Holds
“We hope to pioneer an era where companies first understand and listen to their consumers before thinking about product,” says Zhao. “I think it’s a philosophy that will change the planet because there’s so much wasted in every consumer industry.” PROVEN is on track to become a carbon-neutral company. Since the founding, they’ve cut paper product usage by 55% and have recently partnered with an organization that will plant a tree for every set of products sold. We are nothing without sustainability, and PROVEN aims to do its part.
How to Try Proven**
Spend 3 minutes taking PROVEN’s Skin Genome Quiz. This fun quiz will analyze over 47 factors about you, including your heritage, lifestyle, and environment to customize your skincare.
After our award-winning technology identifies the right active ingredients for you, our Stanford lab will create 3 custom skincare products exclusive to you.
Get your custom formulas delivered straight to your door. If for any reason, you’re unhappy with your products, contact PROVEN Customer Care and they’ll reformulate your routine for free.
Ready to get good skin for life?
