Estella Benz of Inference Beauty on Making Beauty Discovery More Personal
Estella Benz is the founder of Inference Beauty, a cross-brand AI personalization engine for beauty retail covering skin, hair, foundation shades, fragrances and ingredient intelligence. What began as Skin Match Technology is now integrated with retailers and brands across the EU, US, Australia and the UAE.
In this Q&A, Estella shares how years in digital product management and marketing led her to build Inference Beauty, what beauty brands most often get wrong about personalization and product discovery, and how AI-powered search is changing the way consumers find products.
Her perspective offers a practical look at how data, transparency and genuinely personal guidance can make online beauty shopping feel more human, along with advice for women building tech companies.
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Q: What made you start Skin Match, and what led it to become Inference Beauty?
Before founding Skin Match Technology, I spent years working in digital product management and marketing, understanding how consumers discover products, make decisions, and ultimately purchase online. What struck me was how disconnected the online beauty shopping experience was from what consumers actually needed. In a physical store, you can speak to a beauty advisor who understands your skin, your preferences, and your concerns. Online, you're often left navigating thousands of products with very little personalized guidance.
I saw an opportunity to bridge that gap through technology and data. What started as Skin Match Technology evolved into Inference Beauty as our vision and capabilities expanded. We went beyond skincare recommendations to build a cross-brand AI personalization engine covering skin, hair, foundation shades, fragrances, and ingredient intelligence.
Today, we're integrated with retailers and brands across the EU, US, Australia, and the UAE, powered by a database of over 150,000 beauty products and 60,000 decoded ingredients. Our mission has remained the same: to make beauty discovery more personal, transparent, and inclusive.
Q: What do beauty brands most often get wrong when it comes to personalization and product discovery online?
Leaning too much on replenishment purchases, rather than being a source for inspiration. Beauty retailers offer thousands of products across skincare, haircare, makeup, and fragrance, but customers are often left to figure out what actually works for them. In a physical store, you can ask a beauty advisor for guidance. Online, that expertise is often missing.
Another misconception is that personalization simply means recommending similar products or what others bought. Real personalization goes much deeper. It means understanding someone's skin or hair type, individual concerns, ingredient sensitivities, preferences, and even what they want to avoid.
The opportunity is to turn complex product data into simple, meaningful guidance. That's what we're doing at Inference Beauty: helping retailers recreate the experience of a knowledgeable beauty advisor online, while giving them deeper insights into what their customers actually need.
And it has a measurable business impact. Retailers using our technology report a 30% increase in conversion rates and a 17% uplift in average basket value.
Ultimately, I believe the future of beauty retail isn't about offering the most products. It's about making it easier for every customer to find the right ones.
Q: What's next for Inference Beauty, and what would you tell women building a tech company?
We're entering a fascinating new chapter in (beauty) technology. Until recently, brands focused primarily on making their products discoverable through traditional search engines and their own e-commerce websites. Now, consumers are increasingly turning to AI to ask questions, compare products, and receive personalized recommendations. And also founders can easily build their website and tools via Claude.
This fundamentally changes beauty discovery - right now!
Our next focus is helping beauty brands become visible and understandable in this new AI-driven landscape. With our LLM Visibility solution, we're using our expertise in structured product and ingredient data to help brands make their products more accessible to AI-powered search and recommendation engines. I believe the brands that succeed in the future will be those that combine high-quality data, transparency, and genuinely personalized experiences. That's the infrastructure we're building at Inference Beauty.
For women building a tech company, my advice would be to trust your perspective and don't underestimate the value of understanding a problem deeply. Building a company requires resilience, and the willingness to keep learning. There will always be people who question your vision, especially when you're building something that challenges how an industry traditionally operates. What's important is to stay close to the problem you're solving, surround yourself with people who complement your strengths, and keep moving forward.
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