TroveSkin Review: Does Its Skin Tracking Actually Work?

TroveSkin's tracking worked as a logbook more than a measuring tool. It let you record products, habits and dated selfies and compare photos side by side, but its App Store listing never described a numeric skin score whose consistency could be checked. As of October 2026 the app also appears to be gone: we couldn't find it on the App Store or Google Play.

Below we cover what TroveSkin did according to its archived store listing and website, what users reported, why selfie tracking in general shifts with lighting, and which apps do the same job today. We didn't use TroveSkin hands-on for this review; everything here comes from the linked public records.

Is there a better alternative to TroveSkin?

If you want selfie-based tracking that turns photos into numbers, Pori is the one we'd point to first (we make it). A selfie gives an overall skin score from 0 to 100, separate readings for hydration and moisture, pores and texture, pigmentation and tone, and anti-aging and elasticity, plus a skin-age estimate, in about 10 seconds. It has a skin diary for sleep, water, stress and diet, before-and-after comparison, progress charts, streaks and reminders, and its ingredient scanner (Pro) flags ingredients for your skin type. Your history stays on your phone, and photos aren't kept on Pori's servers after the result. Pori is iPhone-only (iOS 17 or later), and the free download includes one free scan; Pro costs $9.99 a week with a 3-day trial for eligible Apple IDs, or $49.99 a year (US, October 2026). If you're on Android or want a pure logbook without scores, the alternatives table further down has other options.

What was TroveSkin?

TroveSkin was a free skincare tracker from Trove Technologies Pte. Ltd. Its last archived US App Store listing, captured in September 2023, called it "TroveSkin: Skincare Coach" and showed a 4.2 rating from 720 ratings, with in-app purchases of $8.99 a month or $64.99 a year. The most recent version listed was 7.1.9, released August 11, 2023, with the note "General maintenance." It required iOS 13 or later and came in English, Indonesian, Malay and Vietnamese.

According to that listing, TroveSkin let you:

• track the products you used and your whole product stash, with expiry reminders;
• get product and routine recommendations for your skin type;
• log lifestyle factors to identify skin triggers;
• track progress with photos and selfie comparisons;
• connect with other users in a community.

The company's website, archived in March 2024, added that you could log mood, diet and stress levels and take photos of multiple facial angles and regions such as the forehead, nose and cheeks. It said the app was available on both iOS and Android.

Is TroveSkin still available?

We couldn't find it. When we checked on October 28, 2026, the US App Store page returned a "not found" error, Apple's app lookup returned no listing for the app's ID, a Google Play search turned up no TroveSkin app, and the troveskin.com domain redirected to unrelated websites. We found no announcement explaining the change, so we can't say whether the app was withdrawn, sold or paused. If you still have it installed, export or save any photos you care about to your phone's camera roll now.

How did TroveSkin's selfie tracking work?

TroveSkin's tracking was built around dated photo logs. You took a selfie, attached the products you'd used and any habits you'd logged, and compared entries over time. The archived listing describes "powerful photo taking and selfie comparisons." It doesn't mention an AI skin score, a 0–100 rating or automatic detection of acne or spots, and we found no official TroveSkin source describing one. Some third-party pages describe a score, but we couldn't confirm that from the company or the store listing, so we've left it out.

That matters for the question in our title. A photo diary "works" if you take comparable photos and look at them honestly. It doesn't measure anything on its own, so there's no score whose accuracy you can test. The real test of a photo tracker is whether your pictures are consistent enough to compare.

Do skin scores change under different lighting?

Yes. Any measurement taken from a phone photo shifts with lighting, distance and angle, whichever app takes it. A 2023 study in the Journal of Biophotonics by Cronin and colleagues photographed skin-tone color standards with a smartphone under different conditions. Camera distance mainly changed measured lightness, while angle changed every color channel, and flash helped in some setups and hurt in others. Standard JPG photos varied more than raw files, which the authors linked to the phone's automatic processing.

For a tracker, the practical upshot is simple. If one photo is taken by a sunny window and the next under a bathroom bulb, the difference you see may come from the light alone. Our guides to lighting for skin photos and why scan results change go further, but the core routine is:

1. Use the same spot, ideally facing a window with indirect daylight.
2. Shoot at the same time of day, before applying products or makeup.
3. Keep the same distance and hold the phone straight at eye level.
4. Turn off beauty filters and portrait effects.
5. Take front, left and right views each time.

Did TroveSkin's routine logging and progress reports hold up?

User reports on the archived listing were mixed. A 2020 review praised being able to compare one day's photos with another, but said the products logged against each photo often showed up blank, wiping out the record the app was meant to keep. A 2022 review from a long-time user said an update put years of selfie logs behind a monthly subscription without warning, and that the reviewer couldn't retrieve photos they had been sharing with their dermatologist.

That second complaint is the bigger lesson. A tracking app is only as useful as your access to its history. Before you commit months of photos to any app, check whether you can export them and what happens to your data if you stop paying.

Logging was the part of TroveSkin's idea that holds up best. Tying products and habits to dated photos is how you see whether something is working, because skin changes slowly. The AAD advises giving an acne treatment at least 4 weeks, expecting improvement in 4 to 6 weeks if it works, and allowing two to three months or longer for clearing. It also warns that switching products every few days can worsen acne. A tracker that keeps you from changing too much too soon is doing its job. See our guide to tracking skincare results for a simple logging plan.

What are the best TroveSkin alternatives?

These apps cover the same ground today. Ratings and prices are from each app's US App Store listing as of October 2026.

• BasicBeauty is the closest to TroveSkin's logbook idea. It has a 4.7 rating from 609 ratings, lets you log more than 80 symptoms and lifestyle choices next to progress photos, and says it needs no sign-up and only you see your data.
• FeelinMySkin combines routine planning with a photo diary, a home-screen widget and a community forum, and searches a database of more than 150,000 products. It's rated 4.6 from 285 ratings.
• Skin Bliss leans toward product matching, with a skin diary and photo comparison against your original scan. Free users get one progress photo a day.
• SkinSort suits people who mainly want to log which products they used each day and get warned about incompatible combinations. It has the most ratings of this group, 4.7 from 6,448.

For a deeper comparison of logging apps, see our roundup of skin diary apps.

How long does it take to see progress in a skin tracker?

Expect it to take weeks. Beyond the AAD's acne timelines, habit research suggests sticking with tracking long enough for it to become automatic. In a review of habit formation, Gardner, Lally and Wardle describe a study in which automaticity reached a plateau after an average of 66 days, with wide variation, and note that missing the occasional day didn't seriously set people back. Pairing your photo with something you already do, such as brushing your teeth, makes it easier to keep going.

No tracker, photo-based or not, can diagnose a skin condition. If a spot changes shape or color, bleeds, or a rash keeps spreading, see a dermatologist instead of waiting for the next log entry.