Sharp is now on iPhone: a 30-second face-scan skincare app

Sharp has arrived on iPhone with a 30-second face scan that gives you a Skin Score and a simple skincare routine to start from. The app checks your lighting and head position, takes shots from multiple angles, and scores six areas: clarity, oiliness, redness, pores and texture, the eye area, and hydration. From there it builds out AM and PM steps, then suggests products based on your results and your budget. You can scan again each week to track graphs, compare before-and-after photos, keep streaks going, get Lock Screen and Dynamic Island reminders, and see updated recommendations.

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If you just want a place to begin, it’s an easy app to try. Still, Sharp says face photos are temporarily sent to Google or OpenAI for analysis and then deleted from Sharp’s servers, so it’s smart to look closely at storage, third-party processing, and deletion settings, especially in Europe, where facial images can be treated as sensitive biometric data.

Sharp is entering a crowded category. Other names already in it include L’Oréal Skin Genius, Neutrogena Skin360, and Sephora Smart Skin Scan, along with Sephora’s dataset of 70,000 medical-grade images and La Roche-Posay’s 50,000 graded photos, according to Sephora and La Roche-Posay. Dermatologists, though, usually frame these apps as cosmetic guidance rather than medical care, and they keep raising the same concerns: uneven accuracy, bias, and how the data gets handled. A late-2023 JAMA Dermatology review found that none of 41 apps had US FDA clearance or approval. Sharp itself is free on the App Store. Your first scan and initial score don’t cost anything, and Premium runs $4.99 a week, $39.99 a year after a 3-day trial, or $79.99 for lifetime access.