A skincare tool built by
someone who got tired of
not knowing what's in the bottle.

Most skincare information
is written to sell you something.

If you've ever tried to figure out whether a product is actually any good, you know the problem. Brand marketing is optimised for clicks, not clarity. Most "reviews" are affiliate content. Even the genuinely well-intentioned influencer advice tends to be based on what worked for their skin, not on what the research says.

Skin Stacker started as a private research habit — reading clinical papers, tracking ingredient concentrations that actually have evidence behind them, noting which combinations conflict and which genuinely synergise — and grew into the site you're using now. It's the resource I couldn't find, built to the standards I wished existed.

Hi, I'm JoAnn.

I'm an independent skincare researcher. I'm not a dermatologist, aesthetician or cosmetic chemist — and I won't pretend otherwise anywhere on this site. What I am is someone who reads the underlying research, checks manufacturer disclosures against INCI data, and translates all of that into plain English so you can make informed decisions without needing a degree in dermatology.

Every ingredient in the database links back to peer-reviewed sources (PubMed, ResearchGate, NIH, AAD) so you can follow the evidence yourself. When the evidence is thin, I say so. When an ingredient only works at certain concentrations, that's flagged. When two actives shouldn't be layered, the tool catches it before your skin does.

Editorial principles.

These are the standards I hold Skin Stacker to. They're here so you know what you're reading and why to trust it — or not.

Independent

No brand has ever paid to be featured, recommended, rated, or included on this site. There are no affiliate links. There are no ads. There is no paid "partner content". If a brand's product is flagged as fairy-dusted or conflicted, that's what the ingredient list shows.

Research-cited, not opinion-led

Ingredient effects, concentrations and interactions come from peer-reviewed research and industry-standard references. Every glossary entry links to its sources. Where consensus doesn't exist yet, I say that explicitly rather than pick a side.

Honest about uncertainty

Cosmetic science is messy. Formulas vary. Individual skin biology varies more. When a claim is contested, under-studied, or only true at certain concentrations, Skin Stacker flags it — even when that's less satisfying than a confident answer.

Privacy-first

There's no login. Your skin profile lives only in your browser's local storage, never on a server. Product scans are processed for analysis and not retained. Google Analytics runs for aggregate traffic only — no personal data is sold, shared or sent to third parties.

Built in the open

If you spot something wrong — a mis-classified ingredient, a missing research citation, an outdated recommendation — please flag it. This site gets better because readers push back.

A few honest limits.

A few specific things Skin Stacker does not do:

• It doesn't diagnose. The "Diagnose a Reaction" tool ranks likely causes from your inputs — it doesn't tell you what you have.
• It doesn't prescribe. Prescription-strength actives (tretinoin, hydroquinone, spironolactone) get educational information only.
• It doesn't replace a patch test. No ingredient analysis, however detailed, predicts whether your skin will react. Always patch test a new product before adding it to your routine.
• It doesn't guarantee ingredient data. AI-estimated ingredient lists are clearly labelled as such. Verified data comes from Open Beauty Facts, which is good but not infallible. When precision matters, check the brand's official website or the physical label.

Who this owes to.

The skincare research community is full of people working harder than their profile suggests — dermatologists, cosmetic chemists, academic researchers and independent writers who make the primary literature accessible. Skin Stacker stands on a lot of their shoulders. Where a specific source shaped a recommendation, it's linked from the relevant glossary or blog page. Where a broader resource has been consistently useful — PubMed, the American Academy of Dermatology, the Linus Pauling Institute — you'll find them in the site footer.