Prose Review

If you’ve ever shopped for haircare or skincare products, you’re likely all too familiar with the frustration of finding the right one to suit your unique needs. A brand that works wonders for someone you know could do nothing for you and vice versa. Many factors contribute to why this can happen — more than just the basic differences between hair and skin types. Structural differences, lipid levels, textures, hydration needs, life stressors, environmental reactions, and others all play vital roles in determining how your hair or skin will react to a product.1 2 And as more of these individual needs have been made known, the demand for personalized hair and skin products has grown dramatically.3

Prose is one company that offers what it calls “truly custom haircare and skincare” — but do these products actually work? Are they worth your time and investment? To find out more, our team tried out their own custom Prose formulas and researched the ingredients used to help you determine if this online service is right for you.

Prose is a great option if you're seeking highly personalized haircare and skincare. The brand takes a smart and considerate approach to custom botanical-based formulas, and it can accommodate vegans and those who need to avoid silicone, dyes or fragrances. Botanicals generally can’t boast as much scientific evidence of effectiveness as medications when it comes to promoting hair growth and reducing signs of skin aging, but Prose is highly transparent about its ingredients, and most of them have at least some positive scientific support. Though it's not cheap, Prose offers solid discount opportunities alongside a money-back guarantee that protects you against disappointment.

Over the past two decades, Innerbody Research has helped tens of millions of readers make more informed decisions involving staying healthy and living healthier lifestyles.

For our review of Prose, our team interacted directly with the Prose platform by taking the intake surveys, getting our own formulas, and trying them out over the course of a few weeks. On the research side, we spent over 80 cumulative hours reading through 50+ studies to ensure we fully investigated the ingredients used in the company’s custom formulas to help you determine whether or not these products are worthwhile for your needs.

Additionally, like all health-related content on this website, this review was thoroughly vetted by one or more members of our Medical Review Board for accuracy.

When evaluating Prose and its products, we considered four criteria that we felt were most important to consumers. The following list details the basic reasoning behind each criterion:

• Safety: When you try a new product with the hopes of it helping you, the last thing you want is for your health or well-being to be at risk by using it.
• Effectiveness: If you’re considering personalized products for your hair and skin, you’ve likely tried mass-produced items on the market with varying levels of success. The products need to be effective to make a service like Prose feel worth it.
• Cost: For some people, the price of a service can be the ultimate deciding factor; it doesn’t matter how good the service is if the average person can’t afford to stick with it.
• Customer experience: The customer experience relates to factors like ease of ordering and how the products feel to use. While these aren't the only factors that make or break your decision to try a service, they can still have a big impact on your opinion of a company and its offerings.

With all of that being said, let’s go over how Prose fared across these main criteria.

Safety

As the rating indicates, Prose truly excels when it comes to safety. Prose’s topical products — haircare and skincare — should be very safe for most people to use. All custom formulas are free from sulfates, parabens, phthalates, GMOs, mineral oils, and alcohol. Your personalized formulas can also be made vegan or free of silicone, dyes, or fragrances upon request. Our one tester with eczema and particularly sensitive skin had no issue with any of Prose’s custom hair or skin formulas.

The company also goes to great lengths to be transparent about its ingredients, which are cruelty-free and almost all plant-based. On the company’s website, there’s an “Our Ingredients” page that lists every possible formula inclusion along with its country of origin, purpose, and Environmental Working Group (EWG) safety score.

The EWG safety score is based on an ingredient’s known safety hazards.4 Overall, the vast majority of Prose’s ingredients have an EWG score of 1 — the lowest possible hazard risk. A few have scores of 2-7, but even the total of all those combined (36) is less than a fourth of the ingredients rated as a 1 (150). And no Prose ingredient is rated between 8 and 10, with the latter being the highest possible risk score.

Competitors like Aura and Function of Beauty may list out some of their ingredients, but neither strives for the same level of transparency as Prose. For example, clicking a Prose ingredient will often take you to a page detailing further information and some research citations, while doing the same for Function of Beauty only ever takes you to a page noting purported benefits without cited sources, and Aura doesn’t have dedicated pages for its ingredients at all.

Topical products aside, Prose’s Root Source supplements may pose some potential risks for a few populations, namely those who are pregnant, nursing, or have certain medical concerns. A majority of the potential Root Source ingredients are just vitamins and minerals, but some botanicals — like saffron and turmeric — can interact with medications,5 or they can cause issues like preterm labor or low blood pressure;6 7 saffron may also interfere with fetal development.8

There are also a few ingredients that people may have allergies to, like sesame,9 wheat,10 and sunflower.11

Ultimately, Prose should be a safe service for most healthy adults to use — even people with sensitive skin — but those who are pregnant, nursing, or taking medication or who have certain medical conditions (like some food allergies) may want to avoid the Root Source supplement. Additionally, we always recommend speaking with your doctor before starting any supplement, even if you’re perfectly healthy.

Effectiveness

When evaluating Prose’s effectiveness, we examined the products and their ingredients alongside the company’s various intended outcomes. According to the ingredient information on the website — besides the basics of cleaning and nourishing your hair and skin — Prose’s personalized formulas are most often meant to:

Many of Prose’s botanical ingredients do, in fact, have some supportive scientific research behind them, which we appreciate seeing. The only ingredient that appears to have little to no support for its use is biotin. While it’s a popular inclusion in cosmetics, both topical and oral biotin have mixed evidence at best,12 with most of the positives being seen only by those with deficiencies (which are rare).13

We’ll cover more ingredients later on, but, as an example, here’s some of the positive evidence behind three possible Prose formula inclusions:

• Green tea is included to control scalp sebum. It contains polyphenols, which are strong antioxidants that researchers note may improve hair health and lower sebum production.14 15
• Niacinamide, a form of vitamin B3, is added for skin protection. This ingredient can help the skin maintain homeostasis, reduce inflammation, and improve the integrity of the skin barrier.16 17
• Bakuchiol, a phytocemical, is another skincare ingredient, but this one is meant for fighting the signs of aging. Studies have found that it can reduce the appearance of wrinkles and hyperpigmentation just as well as retinol.18

While the supporting evidence is promising, there’s not nearly as much research on botanicals as there is on prescriptions or over-the-counter (OTC) medications that serve some of the same purposes as Prose. While it would be pretty unfair to judge Prose’s formulas solely against medications, this comparison is still worth mentioning.

If your concerns about hair shedding, growth, or thickness are severe enough, then your best bet is probably a well-studied prescription or OTC medicated product like finasteride or topical minoxidil (which is FDA-approved for hair loss).19 And the same goes for more noticeable wrinkles or stubborn acne, which may be best treated with retinoids such as tretinoin (one of the most heavily researched retinoids).20

This is why we occasionally mention the telehealth services Hims and Hers throughout this review as a couple of competitors from which you can get these types of products. Your formulas from them won’t be nearly as personalized as the plant-based ones from Prose, but they may be the stronger options for some people to achieve their goals (and Prose products can still play a valuable supporting role even then).

Cost

Generally, the cost for what you get from Prose doesn’t feel exorbitant given how in-depth the personalization of the products is, but there are some situations where the potential results may not feel worth the price, depending on your goals.

For example, if you’re seeking a tried-and-true way to treat noticeable hair loss, then the cost of Prose may not be worthwhile as your sole treatment — your formulas might be able to support your hair growth journey but not play a lead role in it. In such cases, you’d probably be better off relying on a medication, such as topical minoxidil, from a competitor like Hims or Hers. If you went the medicated route, instead of paying $34 every month for a botanical-based shampoo that may not achieve your goals, you’d be paying around $15 per month for an FDA-approved treatment for male- and female-pattern baldness (androgenetic alopecia).19 However, if your hair loss is mild, then you may get cost-effective support from Prose’s custom formulas. Again, it really depends on your goals and priorities.

That being said, outside of situations where a medication or prescription may be necessary, the deep personalization of Prose’s formulas could definitely be worth the cost — especially if you’re in search of customized products that can support or promote the health of your unique hair and skin.

We’ll delve into the pricing of all Prose products later in this review, but for now, the chart below offers a quick example of custom shampoo costs from Prose versus a couple of close competitors.

On average, a bottle of Prose’s shampoo is around $5 more expensive than those from either Function of Beauty or Aura. However, quite a bit more goes into the evaluation and customization of your Prose formulas, which — for some people — may justify paying a few extra dollars.

Of note, Prose, Function of Beauty, and Aura all offer free shipping with subscriptions and 30-day money-back guarantees in the event that you aren’t happy with your first purchase.

Customer experience

Overall, Prose's customer experience is pleasant. The survey for your customization is straightforward, and the company offers additional information if you’re unsure how to answer a question. The data you’re given about what affects your unique needs is also an insightful part of the experience. For example, we didn’t expect Prose to delve into how certain aspects of the environment (like local water hardness and typical UV ray exposure) can impact the health of your hair and skin.

After you complete your survey (or surveys, depending on whether you want one or both types of products), ordering from Prose is pretty straightforward if you go directly from your survey results to checkout. However, backing out and trying to order later through the customer dashboard can be a bit confusing; the customer dashboard isn’t as streamlined as you might find from competitors, such as Hims and Hers.

Shipping times were also longer than expected, with haircare finally being sent out after 13 days and skincare after around 20 due to an ingredient shortage. The lengthy wait times were likely due to the product customization, but a processing period of nearly two weeks is still a pretty long time.

Nonetheless, despite any frustrations with ordering, our testers found the custom products effective and enjoyable to use, though the dry shampoo didn’t perform well for one tester. The scents of the products were particularly pleasant, as well, with the Corsica fragrance (a blend of anjou pear, peony, and cedar) being the favorite.

Founded in 2017, Prose Beauty Inc., known as just “Prose,” is a direct-to-consumer personalized beauty product company based in Brooklyn, NY, and Paris, France. Utilizing its own AI platform dubbed “Singular,” Prose learns about your goals, self-care habits, life stressors, environment, and more during an intake survey and turns that data into a personalized haircare or skincare formula and routine.21 Once you have your routine, you can pick and choose which products you’d like to purchase. Over time, you can adjust your formula through the Review and Refine survey in your customer dashboard.

Currently, Prose has the following custom products available:

Prose also has a strong focus on being environmentally and socially conscious. The company is a Certified B Corporation that’s Climate Neutral Certified, and it donates to organizations like Stop AAPI Hate, The Trevor Project, The Loveland Foundation, and Summertime Gallery, among others.

Prose company standing

At the time of this review, Prose doesn’t have a Trustpilot page, but it does have a Better Business Bureau (BBB) profile. Prose isn’t BBB accredited, but it currently has a B rating, with 3.43 out of 5 stars from customers based on 21 reviews. There have also been 81 complaints closed in the past year and 110 within the past three.

The reviews are mainly 5-star ones, with most of the 1-star feedback coming from customers who claimed to have not signed up for a subscription but received additional products anyway. We appreciate that Prose responds to all negative reviews with additional details, often explaining that the situation was already resolved or that the next steps toward resolution have been taken. The company acts similarly in response to complaints, most of which are also about subscription issues.

Overall, the largest complaint about Prose appears to be problems managing subscriptions. Our team didn’t experience any issues in this area, but we can understand how it may be difficult for some due to the customer dashboard being a bit tricky to navigate at first.

Prose’s direct-to-consumer customized topical haircare and skincare products are for any adult who’s interested in trying them. There really aren’t any restrictions on who can and cannot use them. The formulas can be made for all hair and skin types and people of all sexes and genders. A lot of Prose’s marketing material is women-focused, but the company makes products for all adults.

Who should look elsewhere?

As noted above, Prose’s “topical” products can be for any adult who wants to try them. The supplements, on the other hand, should be avoided by individuals who are pregnant or nursing, those on certain medications, and those with allergies to sesame, wheat, or sunflower oil.

Additionally, the competition has some offerings that Prose does not, and they could potentially sway you in their direction instead. These include:

For most adults, Prose’s topical formulas should all be quite safe (the supplements may not be ideal for everyone, but we’ll touch on that shortly). All of the company’s products are free from parabens, sulfates, GMOs, phthalates, mineral oil, and alcohol. And, if you’d prefer, you can request that your formulas be vegan or made without silicone, dyes, or fragrances. Similarly, Function of Beauty’s products are sulfate-free and paraben-free, and all of its products are always made 100% vegan instead of it being an optional request.

However, Prose stands out from the competition due to its ingredient transparency and overall safety, which we cover in more detail below.

Ingredient transparency

Although everyone’s custom Prose formulas are different and, therefore, have different ingredients, the company makes it easy to find every single inclusion used across all formulas and other products. Clicking the “Our Ingredients” link at the top of the Prose website and scrolling down a bit will bring you to a section called “Our Ingredient Index,” which lists each ingredient used by the brand along with their country of origin, purpose, and Environmental Working Group (EWG) safety score (more on that in a bit).

No matter which ingredient you click on, you’ll be linked to a page containing further information. Most of these pages have an in-depth breakdown, including further sourcing details and “behind-the-scenes science,” which summarizes relevant research studies and clinical trials.

Some ingredients, typically product stabilizers, have limited information or state that more details are coming soon, but it’s far more common to find a page full of content.

It’s rare to encounter this level of transparency, and we greatly appreciate it when companies make this kind of effort. Function of Beauty does something similar, but its ingredient entries only list the intended purpose of each and some purported benefits with no scientific research to back up the claims or EWG scores.

On that note, the EWG score, or “Skin Deep” rating, is based on an ingredient’s known or suspected hazards and how much data is currently available on that ingredient; a score of 1-2 is low hazard, 3-6 is moderate, 7-10 is high, and N/A means there’s not enough information.4 Here’s how Prose’s ingredients stack up by product type:

Note: No Prose ingredients go above an EWG score of 7 at this time.

It’s nice to see that the vast majority of Prose’s topical ingredients fall within the “low hazard” range and are considered quite safe. But, as you can see, all of the EWG scores are limited to topical ingredients; there aren’t any scores available for those taken orally. Because of this, it’s important that we take a closer look at the ingredients of the supplements and go over their safety for various populations.

Supplement ingredient safety

As noted above, since EWG scores aren’t available for the safety of the ingredients in Prose’s Root Source supplements, we’re going to cover a few notable inclusions here.

First off, it’s worth noting that a majority of the ingredients in these supplements should be generally safe for healthy adults who aren’t pregnant or breastfeeding. For instance, out of the 28 possible ingredients in Root Source, ten of them are just various vitamins and minerals. Of course, we still recommend speaking with your doctor first to ensure these supplements are safe for you before taking them.

Now, the ingredients that stand out as potentially unsafe for certain populations are:

So, to summarize, those who are pregnant, nursing, taking certain medications, or allergic to any of the mentioned ingredients should either avoid Prose’s Root Source supplements entirely or at least speak with a doctor first before taking them.

Overall, Prose is powered by various botanicals and other plant-based ingredients sourced from across the globe (same as competitors Aura and Function of Beauty). But do these ingredients actually do what Prose claims?

To investigate the potential behind the botanicals in Prose’s products, we dove into the research behind some of the ones used in the custom formulas we were given for our Root Source supplements, topical haircare, and skincare.

As a disclaimer, everyone’s Prose formula is different, so your personalized products could have very similar or very different ingredients than the ones we cover here. However, we do go over the research behind a few potential inclusions that weren’t in our personal formulas at the end of this section.

Root Source hair supplement ingredients

In the chart below, we’ve broken down some of the science behind the first three ingredients in a tester’s Root Source supplement.

While these ingredients are certainly promising, botanicals, in general, don’t have as much evidence behind them for promoting hair growth, increasing hair thickness, and preventing shedding compared to oral and topical medications — like minoxidil and finasteride.

If these are major concerns for you, especially if you’re dealing with hair loss, we recommend looking elsewhere for the main part of your treatment. Prose’s products should be able to help support your hair growth journey, though. We cover a couple of hair loss treatment providers (Hims and Hers) in the “Alternatives to Prose” section later on in this review.

Haircare product ingredients

For the topical haircare products we received from Prose, we covered the research behind four of the ingredients in the chart below.

Skincare product ingredients

If you’ve purchased or browsed skincare products before, a majority of the following four ingredients may sound familiar. But does the science support their popularity — and Prose’s use of them? Here’s how the research behind these ingredients stacks up:

Additional noteworthy Prose ingredients

The four ingredients below caught our eye when we examined Prose’s Ingredient Index. They weren’t included in our formulas, but they could be added to yours. Here’s some of the research behind these possible formula inclusions:

Overall, after covering multiple Prose ingredients, the only one we really feel isn’t supported enough by current research is biotin. According to one review, “Though its use as a hair and nail growth supplement is prevalent, research demonstrating the efficacy of biotin is limited.”56

Supplementing with biotin appears to benefit only those with rare deficiencies, meaning a majority of people aren’t likely to see any results from it.13 And high-quality studies on topical biotin are basically nonexistent. Interestingly, competitors Function of Beauty and Aura don’t appear to use biotin in their formulas, and the absence of studies may be one of the reasons why.

Otherwise, Prose's various formulas generally contain ingredients with a nice amount of supporting positive research, which we appreciate.

In this section, we cover the costs of Prose’s custom formulas and available accessories, as well as details about the company’s refund and money-back guarantee policies.

Prose custom haircare and skincare formulas

Prose’s custom haircare and skincare formulas are available as one-time purchases or as subscriptions. When you subscribe to either haircare or skincare, your discount is 15%, but it goes up to 20% if you subscribe to both.

In the chart below, we break down the costs of each item depending on the purchase type.

In terms of shipping costs, Prose charges $6.95 for one-time purchases, but subscriptions ship for free. This is similar to the shipping policies from competitors Aura and Function of Beauty.

Prose accessories

At the time of this review, Prose doesn’t offer very many products in its “Accessories” category on the website, but the few it does are rather fitting for an eco-friendly brand dedicated to hair and skin. These include:

• Microfiber hair towel wrap (made from recycled plastic bottles): $35
• Paraffin-free, sustainably crafted candles: $52
• Hand-crafted wooden hair brushes: $72

The final item in this category, a digital gift card, isn’t really an accessory, but it’s housed in the same place. You can purchase the gift card in values of $50, $75, $100, and $150. They don’t expire, and they can be used to purchase any Prose product, including custom formulas and accessories.

Prose refunds and guarantee

Like competitors Aura and Function of Beauty, Prose offers a 30-day money-back guarantee on your first purchase. Prose lets you use this guarantee to either get your money back or modify your formulas early.

It’s worth noting that you’ll get the opportunity to modify your formulas eventually. About a month after your purchase, you’ll see “Review and Refine” appear in your dashboard; this is a survey to help you tweak your formulas to better suit your needs, as applicable.

So, if you don’t like Prose at all, then getting your money back may be ideal, but if you want to give it another try, then getting an early formula adjustment could be the better option.

Outside of the guarantee window, it seems like Prose is willing to try assisting you with advice, but refunds are no longer possible.

To best describe our experience using Prose, we’ve divided it into several sections: one on getting started with the service, another on the ordering process, and a final one on using the products.

Getting started with Prose

Our testers found it quite simple to get started with Prose; the initial step is completing a survey for each type of product you’re interested in — haircare, skincare, or both — and the customization questions get fairly in-depth. For example, the hair survey asks about your:

Once you answer all the questions, you’ll be given a report on what affects your hair in your current location.

After that, you’ll choose your formula preferences, including the fragrance (if you wish to add one) and your hair goals. Then you’ll receive your final results, including what’s impacting your hair health the most.

These impacts can be from stress, sebum, dryness, sensitivity, or damage, and according to Prose, “your formulas will reflect these exact needs."

The skincare survey asks similar questions but focuses more on things like wrinkles, skin firmness, hyperpigmentation, antiaging goals, and general skin health.

Ordering from Prose

If you go straight from your survey results to checkout, then it’s not too difficult to order from Prose; the potential difficulty comes from trying to order your first products through your customer dashboard at a later time.

It’s not very obvious, but you need to go to Your Results and click through your customized profile again in order to be brought to checkout once more. Certain products will be automatically added to your cart as part of your personalized routine, and they’ll be in there as subscriptions, so we recommend scrolling through and making sure that what you want (and how you want it) is correct before proceeding.

Additionally, to cancel subscriptions, you need to click on the Subscribe & Save button in your dashboard and scroll down to find your subscriptions. The first thing you see on the page is a large banner with information about how subscribing can save you money, but it’s not made very clear that it’s also the place to manage subscriptions. This could very well play a part in why most complaints on Prose’s Better Business Bureau page are about difficulty with subscriptions. We hope the company will make it more obvious in the future — and make the whole customer dashboard more user-friendly in general. (The dashboard used by Hims and Hers is much more streamlined and easy to navigate, in comparison.)

After we ordered our custom formulas, our cleanser ran into a bit of a snag: one key ingredient had an “unexpected shortage.” So, while our haircare order took 13 days to ship, our skincare order took around 20. Either way, both are pretty long times between purchase and shipping. This was likely due to the customization, but it still felt like an extended wait.

However, once the products arrived, we found them to be packaged very safely, which was appreciated.

Using Prose products

If there’s one thing that stood out to our testers about Prose’s products, it was the scents. Even fragrance-free items have a pleasant, naturally fresh scent from the ingredients used. The overall favorite fragrance option was Corsica, which is a mix of anjou pear, peony, and cedar.

In general, the custom products themselves were nice to use, too; the shampoo lathers well, the cleanser left a tester’s skin feeling fresh and clean, and the Root Source supplements appeared on the verge of helping another tester with mild hair loss. (At the very least, the supplement made their scalp seem healthier.)

The only product that was a bit iffy was the dry shampoo, which is sort of flour-like in texture. It could just be that the formula wasn’t suitable for our tester’s hair, but it basically just lay on their head instead of actually absorbing the oils and refreshing their roots.

If you use aerosol dry shampoo and enjoy the way it “fluffs up” your hair, Prose’s dry shampoo likely won’t be a good replacement for that. Of course, several of those aerosol dry shampoos contain benzene, a carcinogenic compound, so Prose’s option is probably the much safer choice in the end, even if it doesn’t give you the same results.57

Also, it’s worth noting that our testers reported that the Root Source supplements were easy to take. One is a fairly standard-sized hard capsule, while the other is a small gel capsule. They’re not difficult to swallow, and they don’t have any distinct taste.

As demand for customized beauty products has grown over the years, so has the choice of services across the competitive landscape. If Prose doesn’t quite thrill you, one of its competitors might better serve your needs.

Function of Beauty

As one of Prose’s closest competitors, Function of Beauty also offers customized haircare and skincare products. However, this company doesn’t consider factors like your location or daily stressors, much less the major impacts they can have on the health of your hair and skin. Function of Beauty also doesn’t go to the same lengths to be transparent about its ingredients. Ultimately, we prefer Prose’s method of revealing EWG safety scores, countries of origin, and (often) the research behind the ingredients.

If you’re looking for a custom product that Prose doesn’t offer, though, Function of Beauty may very well have it, as the company offers quite a lot more than Prose in terms of product variety. The available customized Function of Beauty products and their prices (one-time and subscription) are listed below. As a note, not every product gets the 20% subscription discount; if it doesn’t, it’s stated in the chart below.

As you can see, the vast majority of Function of Beauty’s subscriptions don’t actually get you the 20% discount or any discount at all. This is rather disappointing, but many of the products are still less expensive than those from Prose. For example, the original custom hair mask from Function of Beauty is always $26, while the one from Prose is $48 for a one-time purchase, $40.80 with a haircare subscription, and $38.40 at its lowest with the 20% hair and skin subscription discount.

Additionally, Function of Beauty sells bundles based on hair types (you can get the whole routine or just the essentials):

• Straight Hair Bundle: $46.40-$61.50
• Wavy Hair Bundle: $46.40-$61.50
• Curly Hair Bundle: $46.40-$61.50
• Coily Hair Bundle: $33.60-$49.50

And, like Prose and Aura, Function of Beauty offers a 30-day money-back guarantee on your first purchase.

Aura

As another close Prose competitor, Aura also focuses on personalized haircare products. The company recently added a body wash (non-customizable) to its lineup, but hair remains its main focus. Unlike Prose and Function of Beauty, Aura doesn’t offer any detailed information about its ingredients, though some of the ones you may have in your formula are listed on each product’s page.

One aspect of Aura that sets it apart from the competition is the option to add pigment to your custom conditioner and hair mask (or “masque,” as the company spells it). There are Classic Shades (natural colors) and Fantasy Shades (bright, unnatural hair colors, like blues and pinks). You also have the option to get Neutralizing Pigments, which are made to “offset any unwanted warm tones” in your natural hair color.

In total, Aura currently sells 12 different items, putting it one behind Prose’s 13-product lineup, while Function of Beauty just about doubles both of them with 22 items. Price-wise, Aura often falls just below the cost of Function of Beauty, especially when you can subscribe.

The chart below covers all of Aura’s offerings with their single-purchase and subscription prices.

Interestingly, Aura only allows you to subscribe to customized items: shampoo, conditioner, and hair mask. In comparison, Function of Beauty lets you subscribe to nearly everything but doesn’t give you the discount on most items, and Prose has subscriptions on everything except the accessories and always gives you at least 15% off.

Also, like Function of Beauty, Aura sells a few bundles called “Hair Care Duos” and “Hair Care Trios.” For some reason, Aura doesn’t call the bundles in the “Trio” section as such; rather, they’re listed as “Rituals,” but they still contain three products. Pricing details are as follows:

• Blonde Neutralizer Duo: $56
• Scalp Care Duo: $56
• Repair Ritual: $84
• Moisture Ritual: $84
• Smooth Ritual: $84
• Curl Care Ritual: $84
• Color Protect Ritual: $84
• Volume Ritual: $84

Shipping from Aura is only free when you spend over $60, so even subscriptions require you to pay a $5.95 shipping fee if you don’t hit the threshold. In contrast, Prose and Function of Beauty offer free shipping on subscription purchases.

Hims and Hers

While their formulas aren’t as customized, Hims (for men) and Hers (for women) both offer prescription hair and skin products tailored to your needs based on a telehealth visit with a licensed healthcare provider. Prescription and nonprescription items are available, with the main focuses being hair loss, acne, and antiaging. Your telehealth consultation is free, and the prices for the products are similar to those from Prose (though the prices can fluctuate based on your formula).

The general prices for some of the Hims and Hers’ hair loss, acne, and antiaging items are listed in the chart below, and any product that requires a prescription is marked as such.

As the chart shows, the pricing structure of Hims and Hers is pretty complicated — much more so than that of any other company mentioned in this review. And, unlike Prose, Aura, and Function of Beauty, neither Hims nor Hers accepts returns or refunds or offers money-back guarantees. They do offer prescription and medicated products, however, so they may be the ideal choice if you need something stronger for your hair loss or skincare needs.

Nutrafol

Though Nutrafol also sells hair serums, shampoos, conditioners, and other related products, the main draw is the company’s line of “Hair Growth Nutraceuticals” — a collection of supplements designed to support hair growth needs. Unlike the other competitors mentioned in this review, Nutrafol doesn’t personalize its products to you, but its supplements are available in different varieties depending on your assigned sex at birth, age, and dietary restrictions. Most of Nutrafol’s products are created with women in mind, but there is a men’s option, as well.

Most of Nutrafol’s supplements include marine collagen derived from fish. This ingredient — mixed evidence of its helpfulness aside — makes the majority of Nutrafol supplements unsuitable for vegetarians and vegans, though a vegan formula is available for women.58 59 Unfortunately, the one Nutrafol men’s supplement contains marine collagen, and there isn’t a vegan alternative. Because of this, Prose’s Root Source supplement may be a better option for vegans and vegetarians overall.

Here’s how the pricing breaks down for Nutrafol’s supplements (all varieties cost the same) versus Prose’s Root Source supplement:

Nutrafol does offer additional subscription tiers for three-month and six-month supplies, which are as follows:

• Three-month supply subscription: $224, or about $75 per month (15% off)
• Six-month supply subscription: $422, or about $70 per month (20% off)

Nutrafol's one-time purchases incur a $6.95 shipping charge, while subscriptions have free shipping (just like with Prose). Overall, Prose’s Root Source supplement is far more affordable than Nutrafol’s Hair Growth Nutraceuticals.

Additionally, Nutrafol may appear to offer a 30-day guarantee, similar to Prose, Aura, and Function of Beauty, but there’s the caveat that “any product you return must be in the same condition you received it and in the original packaging.” When our team reached out for clarification while reviewing Nutrafol, customer service reiterated that refunds are only available on unopened items. In our opinion, this renders the guarantee useless for those who actually want to try the product before committing.