I was always the friend who built everyone's skincare routine.
Hi — I'm Jessie, and I built Vaiya Labs. For as long as I can remember, I've been the person my friends and family come to for their skin. I'd assess their skin, give them facials, and build them a routine from scratch — the right products, in the right order, for the way their skin actually behaves. It's the thing I love doing most.
Then one of my closest friends told me she was moving across the country. And my first, slightly panicked thought was: what happens when she doesn't have me a fifteen-minute drive away? Who's going to look at her skin when it changes with the new climate? Who's going to tell her which product to swap and which to skip?
That question wouldn't leave me alone. Because it wasn't just her. All of my friends have me build their routines. My mom had me build her an allergen-safe routine — and she has a lot of allergens, which turned into hours of reading ingredient lists and decoding what things are actually derived from. And I kept thinking:
I wanted my friends and family to have me in their pocket — wherever they go, whenever their skin needs a second opinion. And then the thought got bigger: how could I give everyone that? How could I give everyone an esthetician bestie? That's Vaiya Labs. It's me, systematized — the same assessment, the same honest advice, the same "actually, you don't need that $60 cream" — built so anyone can carry it with them.
Who I am
I went to school for esthetics and passed my clinical with a 98%. But somewhere along the way I found my real passion in software engineering — and instead of seeing that as a detour, I realized it was the whole point. I could take everything I learned about skin biology, ingredients, and how routines actually work, and build it into something that helps far more people than I ever could one face at a time. Vaiya Labs is where those two halves of me finally meet.
Why the allergen system means so much to me
This part is personal. I grew up with a dairy allergy severe enough that topical contact gave me hives and swelling — and I found out the hard way that lactose hides in hand sanitizer and milk proteins are used in making latex gloves. Nobody warns you about that. You just react.
My mom's allergies made it even clearer. Building her a safe routine meant knowing that sesame can be listed as Sesamum indicum seed oil, that peanut hides as Arachis hypogaea, that wheat becomes hydrolyzed wheat protein, that coconut wears a dozen different names. So Vaiya filters by ingredient derivative, not just the obvious name, and flags close matches that could cross-react. It's the research I did for the people I love, turned into something automatic — so nobody has to figure it out alone. I'll be honest about its limits, though: it's a powerful head start, not a guarantee. Formulas get reformulated and ingredient lists change, so for a serious allergy the app will always tell you to confirm against the product's own label — and when something needs a doctor or allergist, to see one.
Meet Sophie
Sophie is our guide — a pink Sphynx cat in a little sweater who's genuinely delighted when you check in and quietly judgmental when you skip your SPF. She's named after a friend's cat, a total love bug — who's herself named after Sophie from Howl's Moving Castle. She's the friendly face of all this, because learning about your skin should feel like advice from someone who's on your side, not a lecture.
What I promise you
The core app is free — the routine builder, the allergen system, Skin School, and tracking — because the tools that keep people safe shouldn't sit behind a paywall. If a "where to buy" link earns a small affiliate commission, you never pay a cent more, and it never changes what I recommend. My incentive and yours are the same: the advice has to be genuinely good. You can read the full affiliate disclosure any time, and everything in the app is education, not medical advice — when something needs a professional, I'll always tell you.
— Jessie Jean
Founder, Vaiya Labs · your esthetician bestie in your pocket