Aly Rahimtoola, CEO and Founder of Bien-Etre, discusses why the skincare industry is moving away from marketing promises and toward measurable, data-driven outcomes. Drawing on his experience building an award-winning skincare brand, he unpacks how DNA testing, biomarkers, and skin health scores are replacing guesswork with genuine, individualised precision, reshaping premium beauty across the GCC

1. Why are consumers losing trust in traditional skincare marketing claims?

The gap between what a label promises and what a product actually delivers has become too obvious to ignore. Shoppers have watched the same “miracle” claims get recycled across hundreds of jars, and most have learned to read them as marketing rather than medicine. A 2025 survey found that over half of shoppers don’t trust influencer reviews at all, and even awards and testimonials are increasingly viewed as paid placements. Trust has shifted toward things that can be measured: lab data, clinical credibility, results people can see for themselves. Consumers used to accept being told a product works. Now they want to be shown, on their own skin.

2. What does “clinically tested” actually mean, and why isn’t it enough anymore?

“Clinically tested” has no fixed legal definition. In practice it can mean a product went through some kind of structured assessment, but the phrase alone doesn’t say how many people were tested, for how long, against what benchmark, or whether the results held up. Cosmetics aren’t pre-approved by regulators in the US, the FDA reviews claim only after a product is already on shelves. So “tested” and “proven effective for you” are two different claims wearing the same label. A result from 30 strangers tells you very little about your own genetics, barrier function, or biomarkers. That’s the real shift underway: from population-level testing toward individual, measurable outcomes.

3. How is social media influencing skincare purchases, and is that a problem?

Social media has become the main entry point into the category for most consumers, and for a large share of Gen Z, influencers are their primary source of skincare advice. That’s not inherently a bad thing; it has opened up skin education to people who’d never have had access to it otherwise. The problem is quality control. Studies of dermatology content online have found that only a small fraction of popular skincare accounts is run by board-certified professionals, and misinformation about actives, sunscreen, and routines spreads faster than anyone can correct it. The result is people applying potent products their skin doesn’t actually need. Personalisation is the corrective recommendations grounded in a person’s own data rather than whatever trend is circulating that week.

4. Why do so many consumers still not know which skincare products work for their skin?

Most people are shopping blind. When I founded my own skincare brand, we surveyed our followers and found that around 63% of women didn’t know their own skin type, the single most basic input for building any routine. Get that starting point wrong, and every purchase that follows is a guess. Add an industry that leans heavily on jargon most consumers say they struggle to follow, plus a constant stream of conflicting advice online, and confusion becomes the predictable result. This isn’t a failure of effort or intelligence. It’s the absence of objective data. You can’t choose the right product for skin you’ve never actually measured.

5. How are DNA and biomarker testing changing the beauty industry?

They’re moving beauty from opinion to evidence. Instead of guessing at a skin type, it’s now possible to read the biology underneath its genetic predispositions for collagen breakdown, pigmentation, sensitivity, antioxidant capacity and combine that with measurable biomarkers of current skin health. The market reflects the appetite: the global DNA-based skincare market was valued at over $7.6 billion in 2024, according to Grand View Research, and continues to grow steadily as more consumers come to view DNA-informed products as safer and more effective than conventional ones. It mirrors a shift healthcare made decades ago, moving from one-size-fits-all treatment to precision medicine. Bringing that same technology to the region is what we’re building toward at Bien-Etre.

6. What is a skin health score, and how is it measured?

A skin health score is a single, trackable number that summarises the current state of your skin, similar to how a resting heart rate summarises cardiovascular fitness. Rather than a subjective read of “good day, bad day,” it draws on objective inputs, hydration and barrier integrity, elasticity, pigmentation and evenness, signs of oxidative or inflammatory stress, and where relevant, biomarker and genetic data. Each dimension is weighted and combined into a single score that can be benchmarked and re-measured over time. The number itself matters less than the trend line, which shows whether what you’re doing is actually working.

Click here to join our WhatsApp channel here

7. Which biological markers actually indicate skin ageing?

The most meaningful markers sit below the surface. Epigenetic clocks patterns of DNA methylation have become a widely used estimate of biological age, and skin-specific versions now exist. Telomere length is another accepted marker. In the dermis, the condition of collagen and elastin drives firmness and elasticity, while the build-up of advanced glycation end-products and oxidative stress reflects accumulated damage over time. Together, these markers tell a very different story than a birth date does. Two people born in the same year can have markedly different biological skin age, shaped by lifestyle and underlying biology and that gap, not the calendar, is what actually shows on the face.

8. How does personalised skincare differ from a traditional skin quiz?

A quiz asks what you think is happening. Skin personalisation technology measures what’s actually happening. Quizzes rely on self-reported answers, and since most people misjudge their own skin type, the input is often wrong before a single product gets recommended. They also tend to sort everyone into a handful of pre-set categories that happen to map neatly onto existing product lines. Genuine personalisation starts with data specific to the individual measurements, biomarkers, and where relevant genetics and adjusts as that data changes. One is a marketing exercise dressed up as diagnosis. The other is an ongoing measurement of a person’s actual skin.

9. Can genetics really predict how your skin will age?

Genetics sets the starting hand, not the final outcome. DNA carries real predispositions: how efficiently the body produces and protects collagen, tendency toward pigmentation, antioxidant and inflammatory profile. That’s genuinely useful, predictive information. But research consistently shows that environmental factors UV exposure, pollution, sleep, diet, stress, sometimes grouped together as the “exposome”account for the majority of visible ageing. Genetics tells you where you’re vulnerable and where to invest early. It doesn’t determine the outcome on its own. The most useful approach reads the genetic blueprint and then tracks biomarkers over time, because that’s where prevention actually happens.

Also read: UAE Performs First Balloon Pulmonary Angioplasty for Pulmonary Hypertension

10. Why is the skincare industry moving toward measurable outcomes over marketing promises?

Consumers have largely stopped taking product claims on faith. A generation raised on step counts, sleep scores, and glucose trends expects the same level of accountability from what they put on their skin. Survey data consistently shows people equating quality with visible, provable results and clinical credibility, while treating unsubstantiated claims with suspicion. Measurement protects the brand too a documented before-and-after score doesn’t ask for trust, it earns it. The brands that win the next decade are unlikely to be the ones with the boldest adjectives on the label. They’ll be the ones that can demonstrate, on real skin, that the product worked.

11. How is skincare starting to resemble healthcare and wearable tech in terms of personalisation?

The parallels are hard to miss at this point. Wearables set the template: build a personal baseline, track it continuously, and generate guidance tuned to the individual rather than an average. Skincare is following the same logic, measure the skin, generate a baseline score, act on the data, then re-measure to see whether it moved. As with healthcare, the approach is becoming preventive rather than reactive, and increasingly grounded in biomarkers and genetics rather than aesthetics alone. The routine stops being a fixed shelf of products and turns into a feedback loop. Skin becomes something to monitor and manage, not just decorate.

12. What will define premium skincare brands over the next five years?

Proof, personalisation, and clinical credibility, roughly in that order. The premium signal is moving away from packaging and price point and toward whether a brand can actually measure a customer’s skin, tailor a solution to it, and demonstrate results. That shift is already visible, a growing share of luxury beauty shoppers say medical professionals now influence their purchasing decisions, and that figure has been rising year on year. Going forward, “premium” is likely to mean evidence you can see, data that’s genuinely yours, and outcomes you can track, rather than a heavier bottle or a louder claim on the box. Brands, clinics, and retailers that treat skincare as precision health rather than cosmetics with a story attached are the ones positioned to lead the category.