Your data, in plain language

What we collect — and when

1. Browsing anonymously (most visitors)

Reviews, tools, and guides work without any sign-up. What you enter into tools — quiz answers, diaries, your skin profile — stays in your own browser and is not sent to us; we cannot see it. The exceptions are anything you choose to send (sections 3–6 below) and standard analytics (section 7). How that on-device storage works, and the ways browsers erase it, is explained in how your data is stored.

2. With a free account

If you create an account, we store on our server:

• Your email address and a display name (a pseudonym is fine) — used to sign you in, recover your data, and send the transactional emails an account requires (verification, password reset, and a one-time sign-in link if you ask for one). Your password is stored only as a one-way cryptographic hash; we cannot read it.
• The data you create on the site — skin profile, shelf, wishlist, diaries, symptom scores, tool results, your avatar, and progress photos. We store it for exactly one purpose: so it survives browser clean-ups and follows you to any device you sign in on. Some of this is health-related information about you; we treat all of it with the same rule — it is yours, and it is used for nothing except showing it back to you.

Photos deserve their own sentence: they upload only when you're signed in, live in private storage reachable only through your authenticated session, are never viewed by anyone at Dermington, and are deleted immediately — from our server and your other devices — when you delete them or your account.

3. If you opt in to email

The newsletter and the optional per-concern digest are strictly opt-in checkboxes. If you tick one, your email (and, for the digest, your chosen skin concerns) is shared with Mailchimp, our email provider, solely to send you what you asked for. Every email has a one-click unsubscribe, and opting out removes that data from Mailchimp.

4. If you contact us

The feedback form sends your message (and the email you choose to include) to us via Web3Forms, a form-delivery service. We use it only to reply to you.

5. If you answer a poll

Every product page carries a short poll, and the Town Square runs the same poll on a dozen well-known products. You can say whether you use the product now, used it before, are thinking about it, or it isn’t for you; if you used it, whether it worked for your concerns (improved, no change, worse, or too early), roughly how long you used it and whether you’d buy it again; if you’re still deciding, what holds you back. We store those answers on our server with the product, your skin type if your profile has one, and an anonymous voter key: your account number if you’re signed in, otherwise a scrambled (one-way hashed) form of a random token kept in your browser, so you can change your answer later. There is no free text and nothing else about you. Answers are shown only as a combined tally: on product pages, once at least 25 people have answered; in the Town Square, from the first answer, as the Square says beside each poll. Deleting your account deletes the answers tied to it, and your data export includes them.

6. If you join a waitlist

Where something isn’t open yet, such as the Academy, a “tell me when it opens” form keeps your email address, the list you joined, the time and the page you signed up on. That list is kept on our own server, not with a mail provider, and is used once: to tell you it has opened.

7. Analytics

We use Google Analytics to understand which pages are read and how the site performs — page views, approximate location, device type. This is aggregate traffic data: your skin profile, diaries, photos, account details, and anything you type into tools are never sent to analytics. You can block analytics with any standard content blocker and the site works identically.

What we never do

• Sell, rent, or trade your data — to anyone, for anything.
• Show ads or share data with ad networks or data brokers.
• Use your health information for any purpose besides showing it back to you.
• Read your diaries or look at your photos. Support issues are debugged with metadata, not content.
• Ask for data we don't need. No phone number, no birthdate, no real-name requirement.

Cookies & on-device storage

• One session cookie (da_session) keeps you signed in for up to a year. It exists only if you create an account.
• Browser storage (da_* keys and a photo database) holds your tool data on your device — this is the local-first design, not tracking.
• A random voter token (dac_voter, in browser storage) exists only if you answer a poll without an account. It identifies nothing about you; it only lets this device change its own answer.
• Google Analytics cookies support the aggregate statistics described above.

There are no third-party advertising cookies.

How it's protected

Account data is encrypted in transit (HTTPS everywhere), passwords are hashed with an industry-standard algorithm (PBKDF2), photos are kept outside the web-accessible file space, and access is gated by your session alone. Routine server backups exist so a hardware failure can't destroy your data; deleted data ages out of those backups within about thirty days.

The complete list of third parties

That's the whole list. No ad networks, no data brokers, no social pixels.

Your controls

• See everything: Your data inventories every piece of data, with its backup status.
• Export everything: one JSON file from account settings or Your data — yours to keep, no request process.
• Delete everything: the delete button in account settings permanently removes your account and all its data — profile, diaries, photos, email — immediately and unrecoverably. Local data on your devices is cleared too.
• Stay anonymous: skip the account entirely; every tool still works.
• Unsubscribe: one click in any email.

These controls are self-serve and immediate — but if anything about your data needs a human, use the feedback page and we'll sort it out.

A few specifics

• Children: Dermington is not directed at children under 16, and we don't knowingly collect their data.
• Medical care: nothing here is medical advice (see the disclaimer), and your data is never shared with insurers, employers, or anyone else.
• Changes: if this policy materially changes, the date above changes with it, and signed-in users will be told before any change that affects their stored data.