DermAI

DermAI uses AI to scan your face, identify skin issues, and build you a personalized skincare routine — like having a dermatologist in your pocket, for free.

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Inspiration

Most people have no idea what's actually going on with their skin. Dermatologist appointments are expensive, hard to get, and often overkill for everyday skincare questions. We wanted to close that gap — giving anyone a personalized, intelligent skin assessment from just a selfie.

What it does

DermAI analyzes a photo of your face using computer vision, identifies visible skin concerns like acne, dryness, uneven tone, and texture issues, scores your skin health across four metrics, and generates a fully personalized morning and evening skincare routine tailored to what it finds.

How we built it

The frontend is a single HTML/CSS/JavaScript file with a clean, minimal UI. A lightweight Node.js proxy server sits between the browser and the Anthropic API, keeping the API key secure server-side. The core intelligence runs on Claude's Vision API, which analyzes the image and returns structured JSON containing the skin assessment, scores, and routine steps.

Challenges we faced

The biggest challenge was getting the scoring to be meaningful. Early versions clustered everything between 60–80, making it useless for differentiation. We solved this by engineering the prompt with explicit scoring bands and per-issue deduction rules. We also had to separate image quality assessment from skin health scoring — poor lighting was unfairly penalizing otherwise healthy skin. CORS restrictions required building the proxy architecture rather than calling the API directly from the browser.

What we learned

Prompt engineering matters as much as the code. The difference between a vague instruction and a precise one completely changed the quality of the output. We also learned that separating concerns in AI responses — scoring vs. quality, issues vs. routine — produces far cleaner, more useful results.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Getting a genuine, differentiated skin scoring system working was something we're really proud of. The app doesn't just return generic advice — it produces a score that actually reflects what's in the photo, with a breakdown across four distinct skin metrics. We're also proud of how lightweight the final build is: a fully functional AI-powered medical-adjacent tool in essentially two files.

What's next for DermAI

Skin is just the beginning. We plan to expand DermAI into hair analysis — using the same AI vision approach to assess hair health, identify issues like dryness, breakage, or scalp conditions, and generate personalized haircare routines. The goal is to make DermAI the go-to tool for understanding your full personal care needs, not just your skin.

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