5 Custom Beauty Brands To Try For A Fully Personalized Routine

Beauty is not one-size-fits-all and your routine shouldn't be either. Personalized formulas have been touted as the future of the beauty industry, and there's a new crop of brands—many of them driven by AI— offering made-to-order, fully bespoke products that cater to each customer's unique needs. From affordable haircare lines you can blend at home to skincare formulas created by complex algorithms, these brands are all about putting yourself first.

Lixr

The brainchild of Bite Beauty founder Susanne Langmuir, Lixr focuses on complexion and lip products crafted with all-natural ingredients. The star of the line-up is the Future Foundation Serum ($88), a tinted, lightweight makeup-skincare hybrid that is blended-to-order to match your exact skin tone using AI, and customized with a selection of finishes, coverage options and skincare ingredients for concerns such as dry skin, uneven skin tone or redness.

Function of Beauty

Function of Beauty is best known for its direct-to-consumer customized hair care, body care and skincare formulas, which are created by an algorithm that offers millions of unique formulas depending on hair or skin types, needs and concerns, as well as preferences such as product scent and colour.

The brand recently launched a luxe pro line at Sephora, along with an affordable customizable option at Shoppers Drug Mart. The drugstore line features collections for straight, wavy, curly and coily hair, and allows you to mix your own formulas at home by adding up to three capsules of active ingredients ($5 each) to a base shampoo or conditioner ($16 each) to tackle goals such as shine, curl definition, volume or colour protection.

Prose

After gaining a cult following for its ultra-effective made-to-order bespoke haircare (from $26), Brooklyn-based brand Prose now makes personalized skincare as well. The process is simple: Fill out a questionnaire about your go-to skincare routine and concerns, share your location (which tells the AI what type of climate to account for) and an algorithm capable of over 15 million combinations creates a fully customized routine that includes a cleanser ($40), a serum ($75) and a moisturizer ($61).

Omy Laboratories

This Quebec-based brand offers both ready-to-purchase skincare and body care products and a small customizable line that includes a day cream ($65), a night cream ($70) and a serum ($85). Choose three of the suggested skin concerns for each product you purchase and the team will whip up a formula just for you with a selection of tried-and-true active ingredients like hyaluronic acid and peptides. If you like your formula, refills are available at a small discount.

Lip Lab

Although beloved Canadian beauty brand Bite Beauty is no more, the brand’s custom lip colour workshop—which has been renamed Lip Lab—is still available to book online or in-person in Toronto and across the U.S. While it is on the pricier side, the experience of making a custom product—which includes choosing a finish and a flavour, plus engraving the bullet—is worth it if you've been on a fruitless quest to find your perfect shade. (It also makes an amazing gift.) Not into lipstick? The Lip Lab now offers custom balms ($55) and glosses ($65) too.