ComfiSkin vs the Ulta app
Ulta’s app wraps shopping, rewards points and a skin analysis into one place, and every part of it points you back to Ulta’s shelves. ComfiSkin checks any product against your skin, wherever you buy it, with no account and no ads.
Data used to track you
Purchases, financial info, contact info, search history, identifiers and usage data.
From the Ulta app’s App Store label
The short answer
Ulta’s skin analysis is a shop telling you what to buy from the shop. The app lists your purchases, financial info and search history as data used to track you, and Ulta was sued in 2023 over face scans from its virtual try-on.
What that means: the “personal beauty genius” works for Ulta, not for you, and you pay for its advice with a detailed record of your shopping. Scan products in ComfiSkin first. It will tell you when you don’t need anything.
Side by side
| ComfiSkin | Ulta app | |
|---|---|---|
| Where recommendations come from | Any brand, starting with what you own | Ulta’s range1 |
| Will it tell you not to buy something? | Yes, when you own something similar | No. Not buying doesn’t earn points |
| Tracks you across other apps | No | Yes, six kinds of data, including financial info1 |
| Face scans | Never needs your face | Sued in 2023 over its virtual try-on4 |
| Does it check your products work together? | Yes, across your week | No |
| A salon in many stores | No | Yes |
A skin analysis that ends at the checkout
The Ulta app says its Skin Analysis gives you “a customized skin care recommendation”, and its newest feature, Ulta AI, is billed as your “personal beauty genius”.1 Both live in the same app where you shop and collect points. In 2022, Ulta partnered with the AI company Haut.AI to power the skin analysis.3
Put those together and look at what you’re actually getting. A rewards scheme built to make you spend more, more often, at one shop. A skin analysis that recommends from that shop’s shelves. A “genius” whose employer only profits when you buy. None of it is independent, and none of it will ever tell you that the moisturiser you already own is fine.
ComfiSkin has no shelves to empty and no points to dangle. It checks products from any brand against your skin, compares new ones with what you already own, and tells you when to skip a purchase.
What that means for you: the analysis will never tell you to keep what you’ve got, because that doesn’t make Ulta any money. ComfiSkin will.
Your points are paid for with your data
Apple asks every app to list the data it uses to track you across other companies’ apps and websites. The Ulta app lists six kinds: purchases, financial info, contact info, search history, identifiers and usage data.1 On Google Play, Ulta says it shares data including photos, precise location, purchase history and device IDs with other companies.2 The more loyal you are, the clearer the picture of you becomes.
Face data has been in court too. In 2023, a shopper filed a proposed class action alleging that Ulta collected facial scans through the virtual try-on on its website without the consent Illinois law requires.4 These are allegations, and we found no reported outcome, but a face scan isn’t something you can change if it’s misused.
ComfiSkin has no points, no ads and no checkout, so it has no reason to know what you bought, what you spent or where you were. Your skin profile, shelf and photos stay on your phone.
What that means for you: those points aren’t free. You pay for them with a detailed record of your shopping and spending. ComfiSkin asks for none of it.
What to do if you use the Ulta app
- Treat its recommendations as a shop suggesting its own products. Because that’s exactly what they are.
- Turn off app tracking. On an iPhone, go to Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Tracking.
- Scan before you buy. ComfiSkin tells you whether the product suits your skin, and whether you already own something that does the same job.
Sources
- Ulta Beauty on the US App Store: description, release notes, developer name and App Privacy label. apps.apple.com
- Ulta Beauty on Google Play, data safety section. play.google.com
- Haut.AI, “Ulta Beauty and Haut.AI strategic partnership”, March 2022. haut.ai
- Bloomberg Law, “Ulta Salon draws latest privacy suit over virtual try-on tool”, February 2023, on Cabiltes v. Ulta Salon, Cosmetics & Fragrance. news.bloomberglaw.com
More comparisons
Check before you buy
See whether it suits your skin, and whether you need it at all.
- Free, all of itNo plans, trials or paywalls. Every feature, for everyone.
- No sign-upNo account, no email, no password to lose.
- No ads, no trackingNothing about you is sold, shared or followed around the web.
- Your notes stay on your phoneWith a password-protected backup that only you control.
- Never asks for your faceIt reads the label, not you.
- Answers for your skinYour skin type, concerns, avoid list and routine, every time.