🇦🇺Australia

The Ordinary vs Taro

Rated by Lovi · Unbiased, science-based skincare AI trained on real user outcomes · How the Fit score works

The Ordinary and Taro are accessible skincare brands offering daily care for modern routines through carefully crafted formulas. The Ordinary is known for serums, moisturizers, cleansers, toners, and more built around hyaluronic acid, glycerin, and squalane, while Taro is warmly embraced for its targeted serums. Both brands suit dry skin and dry sensitive skin best, though the latter also suits combination skin, and their standout products address acne, dark spots, and mature skin. They differ primarily in ownership and origin, as the Canadian brand founded in 2016 is owned by The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. since 2021.

The Ordinary is a Canadian skincare brand founded in 2016 and owned by The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. since 2021.

glossy.coen.wikipedia.org

This page compares some of the most popular The Ordinary and Taro products; for every product of both brands, with a fit score for your own skin, use the Lovi app.

Popular The Ordinary vs Taro products

The Ordinary vs Taro serums and treatments

Questions and answers

The Ordinary or Taro: which is better?

The products on this page for The Ordinary fit dry, dry sensitive, and sensitive skin best, while Taro offers only Tretinoin Cream which has a low fit for those types. The Ordinary provides many fragrance-free serums and moisturizers, whereas Taro is limited to a single prescription-strength cream.

What is the difference between The Ordinary and Taro?

The Ordinary offers a large range of fragrance-free skincare products on this page with High or Superior Lovi fit for dry and sensitive skin, whereas Taro features only Tretinoin Cream, which may help with acne-prone and combination skin but is unlikely to fit dry or sensitive skin. Tretinoin helps restore collagen formation in photodamaged skin.

The New England Journal of Medicine, 1993

Which is more affordable, The Ordinary or Taro?

The products on this page from The Ordinary are often mentioned by reviewers as affordable and great value serums, whereas Taro only features a single prescription tretinoin cream on this page and lacks broad affordability reviews.

Which causes fewer breakouts, The Ordinary or Taro?

The products on this page from The Ordinary fit acne-prone skin with ratings ranging from Low to Superior, while Taro features Tretinoin Cream with a High fit for acne-prone skin.

What skin types do The Ordinary's brand-focused routines fit best?

Lovi finds that The Ordinary's brand-focused routines fit dry skin, dry sensitive skin, and sensitive skin best.

Which company was founded earlier, The Ordinary or Taro?

Taro was founded much earlier in 1950, whereas The Ordinary was founded in 2016.

Do products from either The Ordinary or Taro contain fragrance?

Every product on the page from both The Ordinary and Taro lists no fragrance in its ingredients.

Research behind their key ingredients

Behind this comparison

Lovi compares products by their fit scores, calculated from the full ingredient list with brand-independent rules our dermatologists and cosmetic chemists build and review, and personalizes every pick with AI trained on the real results of millions of users. Lovi trains its fit score models on a proprietary dataset built from more than 10,000 expert-labeled products and more than 100,000 simulated examples, following an internally consistent methodology presented at Cosmoprof, AMWC, and Skin of Color Update.

  • Nadia Kapleva, MS

    Nadia Kapleva, MS

    Co-founder, Medical Director

    Cosmetic chemist, cosmetologist, aesthetic products developer

  • Alexey Shagraev, PhD

    Alexey Shagraev, PhD

    Co-founder, CEO and CTO

    PhD in computer science, 3x US patent holder, ex-Google, ex-Yandex

  • Dr. Sofía Perea Pérez, MD, MSc

    Dr. Sofía Perea Pérez, MD, MSc

    Medical Board

    Aesthetic medicine practitioner, MSc in Longevity and Anti-Aging Medicine

  • Aishani Shah, MD

    Aishani Shah, MD

    Medical Board

    Specialist dermatologist, MBBS, MD, IFAAD

  • Asya Zubkova, MS

    Asya Zubkova, MS

    Medical Board

    Cosmetic chemist, SCS, IFSCC member

  • Hanna Kurets, MD

    Hanna Kurets, MD

    Medical Board, Medical Advisor

    Dermatology MD

  • Elina Nazarenko, MD

    Elina Nazarenko, MD

    Medical Board

    Dermatology and diagnostic consultant

  • Victoria Derkova, MS

    Victoria Derkova, MS

    Medical Board

    Cosmetic chemist, cosmetic development technologist

How does it fit your skin?

Scan your face, then any product: Lovi shows how well it fits you and what fits even better.

QR code: get the Lovi app
Download on theApp Store Get it onGoogle Play