Obsessed with K-beauty or trying to find the right skincare? Try this app
The pandemic spawned an explosion of skincare products for those who wanted to self-care at home. With the current proliferation of brands, however, it’s become increasingly hard to choose which products are right for you.
Mindful of this, South Korean Jihong Lee and American Michael He started Picky, a skincare app that makes it fun and easy to find your holy-grail skincare.
Jihong is a skincare enthusiast who’s maintained a skincare routine for nearly all his life, and even started his son on sunscreen as soon as he could speak.
When you join Picky, first you take a short quiz to verify your skin type, then it searches through its library of 40,000 products to recommend the best matches for you and your concerns.
Like many of us, Michael didn’t know where to start because he felt like there were so many products out there: “We need to maintain our skin but have fewer resources to find the best products,” he notes. “With Picky, we can begin to learn more about skincare from a thoughtful global community.”
When you join Picky, first you take a short quiz to verify your skin type, then it searches through its library of 40,000 products to recommend the best matches for you and your concerns, factoring in price, whether you’re acne-prone, vegan, pregnant, or want products that are fragrance- and cruelty-free. Each product is ranked with a risk level for your skin, and honest reviews by product users help you make your final choice.
“Picky launched with 30,000 products, all focused on skincare,” Michael says. “Currently, we get up to 1,000 new product requests in a single week.”
To stay on top of market trends, Picky employs a panel of 20 global skin experts led by Dr. Claudia Christin, a Ph.D. in dermatology, and includes four dermatologists and one aesthetic doctor from the Philippines.
Pinoys fascinated with K-beauty should definitely check out Picky, because it’s the best resource for exploring Korean skincare. “We partner with leading and emerging skincare brands, especially K-beauty brands, to give our users a chance to try new skincare products for free,” Michael says. “Some of our partner brands include Cosrx, Purito, and Keep Cool.”
He says Picky’s users from the Philippines are among their most active, with nearly 20,000 having joined, ranging in age from teens to 70-somethings.
“Our Filipino users have loved using Picky! We have a Super Picky Squad of top Picky users who contribute helpful reviews and thoughtful Q&A discussions, and many of them are from the Philippines. We created a discussion board especially for Filipino users to speak in local languages, and for the Philippines, we also have held special free product giveaways and educational events with dermatologists.”
At present Picky doesn’t earn revenue from its partners, ensuring the app remains completely impartial and objective. “Our focus for now is building our global Picky community, and we will remain completely free and independent from brands,” Michael says. “Picky aims to be a global platform for authentic information in the beauty industry.”