The Story of SkinFair

3 min readOct 20, 2020

WaiACCELERATE participant/founder: Kristina Kosenko, Founder & CEO at SkinFair

Kristina Kosenko is on a mission to save our skin. Like so many of us, Kristina struggled with her skin through her early twenties. This led her through endless visits to the dermatologist, subscribing to the latest trends, and spending hundreds on skincare products that didn’t work. She discovered that not only are many of the claims made by skincare companies misleading, and in some cases explicitly false — but that some of their products are downright dangerous.

Furthermore, skincare is so deeply personal. There are no two skin types that are quite the same, and no one-size fits all solution. And with the laundry list of ingredients that are found in most commercial products, chances are high that there will be a hidden trigger for a breakout or allergic reaction.

Kristina, a seasoned data scientist, is leveraging her expertise in data and machine learning to build a skincare recommendation engine that matches you with the products that you should be using. On average, consumers spend about 45–1.5 hours researching just one product. With SkinFair, you can have all the information you need to make an informed decision within seconds. Kristina’s platform aims for simplicity, and will recommend a short list of options for each user from the comprehensive library of vetted products. Using AI and rule-based algorithms, the platform will respond to the users feedback on which products worked for them and make more sophisticated recommendations, while selecting out products that have been deemed to be harmful.

Kristina has a passion for telling stories through data — a philosophy that she brings to her practice as both a data scientist and an entrepreneur. SkinFair is her third business venture; her most recent being a successful development company, where she leverages her 8 years of data science experience to implement analytics and machine learning for clients across a variety of fields, from healthcare, to fintech, to retail.

Her expertise as developer has taught her how to operate within ambiguity and distill high-level objectives into clear steps and deliverables. It has also taught her to be agile, and respond to changing market needs — all of which are critical to finding success in entrepreneurship. She has worked as a one-person team, and has also built high performing data science teams from the ground up.

The way we buy skincare is ripe for disruption. Consumers are tired of chasing the ideals of clear, radiant skin; buying into empty promises, and being left frustrated and with damaged skin. And with more people taking to online communities to give feedback and share reviews, there is a wealth of data to guide consumers in the right direction. By gathering this data in one place, and leveraging AI to gleam meaningful insights, we finally stand a chance to decode the skincare market and do what’s right by our skin.

Interested in learning more? Check out the website of SkinFair or connect with Kristina on Linkedin.