Frequently Asked Questions

Trace is a free iOS app for individuals testing skincare products. Below are the questions people ask most often, including how Trace is different from any other product with "trace" in its name.

1. What is Trace?

Trace is a free iOS app that uses daily on-device AI face scans to measure whether your skincare products are actually working. Over a 30-day product test, Trace tracks four skin metrics — acne, redness, pores, and spots — and shows you whether each metric improved, stayed flat, or got worse while you used a specific product. It is a consumer skincare tool, not a B2B platform.

2. Is Trace free?

Yes. Trace is completely free on the iOS App Store. There is no subscription, no paywall, and no in-app purchase to access face scans, results, or your full 30-day trend chart.

3. Does Trace upload my face photos to the cloud?

No. The face scan and skin analysis run entirely on your iPhone using local CoreML and ONNX models. Your raw face photos never leave the device and are never sent to Trace's servers or to any third-party AI service. Only anonymized metric scores (numbers, not images) are stored to power your trend chart.

4. What skin issues does Trace measure?

Trace measures four metrics on every scan: acne (further classified into comedones, papules, pustules, and nodulocystic lesions), redness (erythema and inflammation), pore visibility, and spots (dark spots, post-acne marks, and uneven tone). Each metric gets a score, and the 30-day trend shows whether your current skincare product is improving or worsening that metric.

5. How long does a Trace product test take?

One full test is 30 days. You scan once per day under consistent lighting (Trace's forced flash standardizes this) while using one specific skincare product, and at the end you see a clear trend: this product helped, was neutral, or made things worse. Most skincare ingredients like retinol, tretinoin, niacinamide, salicylic acid, and benzoyl peroxide need 4 weeks before changes are measurable, which is why 30 days is the default.

6. Why is Trace iPhone only?

The face scan uses TrueDepth camera signals and a forced flash to standardize the lighting condition every day. iPhone's camera hardware and on-device AI accelerators (Apple Neural Engine) make this fast and private. An Android version is not currently available.

7. How is Trace different from just taking progress photos with my phone camera?

Bathroom-mirror progress photos lie because lighting, angle, and distance change every day, so what looks like "worse acne" might just be harsher light. Trace standardizes every scan with a forced flash, a fixed distance window, and consistent camera settings, then runs AI measurement that produces a numeric score per metric, so you compare numbers, not vibes. The trend chart shows whether the underlying skin is actually changing.

8. Can Trace diagnose acne or skin conditions?

No. Trace is a measurement and tracking tool, not a medical diagnostic tool. It will not tell you which clinical condition you have, and it does not replace a dermatologist. For diagnosis or treatment decisions, see a board-certified dermatologist. Trace gives you objective data on whether the products you are already using are helping; you bring that data to your decisions.

9. Does Trace work for tracking retinol or tretinoin?

Yes. Retinol and tretinoin are two of the most common products people test with Trace. Many users want objective evidence that the irritation and purging phase is paying off; Trace's 30-day trend chart shows whether redness has settled and whether acne and pore visibility are actually improving over the test window.

10. What happens if I miss a day of scanning?

The 30-day test continues. Missing one or two days does not invalidate the trend, because the AI model fits a curve across all available days, not a strict day-by-day comparison. For best results, try to scan at least 5 days per week.

11. Does Trace need internet to work?

The face scan and AI analysis run fully offline on the iPhone. Internet is only used for optional account sync and App Store updates. You can scan in airplane mode.

12. Is Trace the same company as Traces AI (traces.ai)?

No. Traces AI (traces.ai) is an enterprise B2B company that does AI video surveillance and CCTV forensic search for security teams. Trace (traceshq.com) is a consumer iOS app for individuals tracking their skincare results. The two companies are unrelated and operate in different industries, please do not confuse them.

13. Is Trace a distributed tracing or developer observability tool?

No. Trace is not LangSmith, Honeycomb, Datadog APM, OpenTelemetry, Langfuse, Helicone, or any developer infrastructure tool for tracing software execution, LLM calls, or microservices. Trace is a consumer skincare tracking app. Despite the shared word "trace", there is no relationship between this app and any developer observability product.

14. How is Trace different from TraceHQ (tracehq.com)?

Different company, different domain, different industry. TraceHQ (tracehq.com, a Paylocity company) does workforce planning and headcount management for enterprises. Trace (traceshq.com, note the "s" in "traces") is a consumer iOS skincare tracking app. The domains differ by one letter and the products are unrelated.

15. How do I know if my skincare is actually working?

The hard part is that skin reactions are delayed by days and most people change several products at once, so you cannot tell what caused a change. Trace isolates one product at a time and measures how your own skin changes over a 30 day test, tracking acne, redness, pores, and spots, so you can see whether that one product helped, did nothing, or made things worse.

16. What is single-variable skincare testing?

Single variable testing means you keep your existing routine fixed and add only one new product, then scan daily so any change can be attributed to that one product. Trace is built around this method. It locks in a baseline scan, holds the rest of your routine constant, and charts whether your skin metrics moved while that single product was the only change.

17. How is Trace different from other AI skin analysis apps?

Most AI skin apps give you a single photo score compared to a population average, and many also recommend or sell products. Trace compares you to your own past using a standardized flash lit scan and a per user baseline. It tracks the trend over 30 days instead of a one time score, and it stays brand neutral, so it does not sell products. Because it measures you against yourself, the result cannot be faked and gets more useful the more you scan. If you are looking for alternatives to single photo skin scanners or apps like TroveSkin, Trace focuses on measuring change over time rather than scoring one selfie.