Founder

Nadezda Vyalykh, founder of Skin Roast

Nadezda Vyalykh

Founder & Editorial Director

For 16 years I worked as a portrait photographer. I've looked at more faces, up close and in detail, than almost anyone — and I'll tell you what that taught me: almost nobody has "perfect skin." What you see in a polished photo is retouching, not biology.

But knowing that didn't make skincare easy — not even for me. The market is pure noise: too many products, too much advertising, too many confident voices. A dermatologist or cosmetologist visit is expensive, and the cosmetologist often steers you toward whatever brand they happen to stock. Figuring out which active ingredients actually match your problem is genuinely hard.

Skin Roast didn't start as a business. It started with my own family — my teenage son, dealing with breakouts, and my husband, with aging skin. Neither of them wanted to sit in a cosmetologist's chair. I started researching how to choose the right products for them, and quickly hit a wall: women's skincare doesn't always work on men, and the wrong product can actually trigger acne instead of calming it.

"Men's skin is not women's skin in a black bottle — and men don't want a 10-step ritual. They want one clear instruction they can follow and then stop thinking about."

The deeper I went, the clearer it got. Men's skin is physiologically different. And men approach skincare differently — there's a real psychological barrier, and most men don't want to study this the way women do. They want one clear answer, slotted into the day, and then to forget about it.

So I built that. I'd been learning AI, and I made the tool I wished existed for the men in my house: honest, fast, no fluff. And I deliberately built humor into it — because picking products and building a routine shouldn't feel like a chore. Lower the seriousness, add a bit of fun, and men actually stick with it. Skincare doesn't have to be solemn to work.

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What Skin Roast Is

Skin Roast is two things:

What Skin Roast Is Not

How We Work — Methodology

The Skin Analysis

The AI is built on top of a vision-language model fine-tuned for skin-condition recognition. From a single photo it evaluates surface signals (oiliness, redness, pore visibility, texture, post-acne marks, signs of barrier damage) and pairs each finding with a corresponding ingredient and routine. The protocol is calibrated for male physiology — thicker skin, higher sebum production from testosterone, daily mechanical stress from shaving.

The output is intentionally direct. If your skin doesn't need a product, we say so. If your routine is fine and you don't need to add anything, we say that too.

The Editorial — How Articles Are Written

We're transparent about this because we think it matters:

Editorial Disclosure

We disclose the AI-drafted, human-reviewed process openly because we think hidden AI workflows damage trust more than transparent ones. The standard we hold ourselves to is the same a good editor would: accuracy first, simplicity second, no claim without a real basis.

Sources We Rely On

Primary Research

PubMed

Peer-reviewed dermatology and biochemistry literature for ingredient mechanisms and clinical efficacy claims.

Clinical Guidelines

American Academy of Dermatology

Official AAD guidelines on acne, sun protection, and skincare basics.

Reference

DermNet NZ

Authoritative open dermatology reference — conditions, treatments, drug interactions.

Ingredient Lookup

INCIDecoder

For product formulation breakdowns and ingredient cross-references.

Connect

Skin Roast on the platforms it actually exists on:

Instagram

@roast_my_skin

TikTok

@roastmyskin

Facebook

roastmyskin

Reddit

r/MenSkinCareLab

Product Hunt

@roast_lab

TAAFT

@roastmyskin

Want to see how Skin Roast actually analyzes a face?

Get Roasted — $9 →