Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4.2 out of 5)
I get sent a lot of beauty books at Deified Publication, and most of them read the same way. Buy this serum, follow this routine, look like this model on the cover. So when Customize Your Beauty by Kiran Sandhu landed on my desk, I’ll be honest, I almost filed it under “another one of those.” I was wrong, and I’m glad I sat down and actually went through it properly instead of skimming.
What changed my mind was the very first chapter. Sandhu doesn’t open with a product list or a celebrity secret. She opens with the five skin types, oily, dry, sensitive, mature, and combination, and just breaks down what each one actually feels like on your face. Dry skin feels tight and flaky and doesn’t hold moisture. Oily skin has visible pores and gets shiny fast. It sounds basic written out like that, but I’ve reviewed enough beauty guides to know that most authors skip this step entirely and just assume you already know your skin type before you’ve bought the book. Sandhu doesn’t assume anything.
What the Book Is About
At its core, this is a guide about figuring out what your skin and body actually need instead of copying a routine off social media. The blurb calls it a book about discovering what works for you rather than following trends, and having gone through the chapters, that promise holds up. It moves from skin typing into a full skincare routine, cleansers, toners, moisturizers, night creams, exfoliation, and home remedies for specific skin problems like acne, sunburn, and fine lines. Then it shifts into makeup, eye shapes, eyeliner technique by eye shape, color theory, undertones, and face shape based contouring. By the later chapters it’s covering body shapes, dressing for your shape, and then, somewhat unexpectedly, a full diet and weight loss section with a sample day’s menu.
That’s a lot of ground for one book, and I’ll admit my first thought was that it might feel scattered. It doesn’t, mostly because Sandhu keeps circling back to the same idea. Know your type first, whether that’s your skin, your eye shape, your face shape, or your body shape, and only then pick your routine.
What Stood Out to Me
The thing I kept flipping back to was the skin test section in Chapter 2. Sandhu gives you four different ways to figure out your skin type at home, the litmus paper test, the tissue paper test, the mirror test, and the soap test. I’ve read plenty of skincare books that tell you to “know your skin type” without ever explaining how, and here Sandhu actually walks you through dabbing a tissue paper on your face in the morning and reading the oil traces like a diagnostic tool. It’s such a small, practical detail, but it’s exactly the kind of thing that makes a beauty book genuinely useful instead of aspirational.
I also appreciated how granular the recipes get. The homemade toner section doesn’t just say “use rose water,” it gives you six variations depending on your exact skin type, down to which essential oils pair with dry versus mature skin. Same with the night cream chapter, where she lays out a base of cocoa butter with different carrier and essential oil combinations for oily, dry, sensitive, and combination skin. It reads less like a lifestyle book and more like a personal recipe file someone built up over years and decided to finally write down.
The eye shape chapter surprised me the most, honestly. I wasn’t expecting a beauty guide to get this specific about hooded eyes versus monolid eyes versus protruding eyes, and then to follow each one with exact eyeliner application instructions, thin liner for hooded eyes, upturned winged liner for downturned eyes, liner close to the waterline for small eyes. There’s a moment in Chapter 13 where she draws out the entire color wheel and explains how a cool undertone can still wear a warm green if it leans toward yellow on the wheel. That’s a level of nuance I don’t often see in books aimed at everyday readers rather than trained makeup artists.
The Emotional Core
This isn’t a book that’s trying to make you feel something in the way a novel does, and it shouldn’t be judged on that. But there is an emotional thread running through it, and it’s the idea that you’re allowed to stop performing beauty according to someone else’s checklist. The line in the blurb, that true beauty begins when you stop copying others and start understanding yourself, actually gets backed up by the structure of the book itself. Every single chapter forces you to identify your own type first, whether that’s skin, eyes, face, or body, before it gives you a single product recommendation. There’s something quietly reassuring about a beauty book that keeps telling you the answer is different for everyone, and means it.
Who This Book Is For
If you’re someone who’s tired of one size fits all skincare content and wants to actually understand your own face and body before buying another product, this is a strong pick. It’s especially useful if you like DIY and home remedy approaches, the amount of kitchen shelf ingredients used here, oats, yogurt, aloe vera, baking soda, is genuinely impressive. I’d also point makeup beginners toward the eye shape and face shape chapters specifically, since they function almost like a standalone reference guide.
Where it might not land as well is if you’re looking for a narrative, story driven read or a book you’ll finish in one sitting. This is a reference book, one you’ll flip back to before a skincare routine or before doing your makeup, not something you read cover to cover for entertainment. If you want glossy brand recommendations and celebrity endorsed products, you also won’t find that here, Sandhu stays almost entirely in the DIY and natural remedy lane.
Final Thoughts
In my years reviewing books at Deified Publication, I’ve come across plenty of beauty guides that oversell and undertest. Customize Your Beauty by Kiran Sandhu doesn’t do that. It’s dense, sometimes a little too dense, the diet and weight loss chapters near the end feel like they belong to a slightly different book and could have used tighter editing to connect back to the beauty theme. But the core of it, the skin typing, the home remedies, the eye and face shape breakdowns, is thorough in a way that actually respects the reader’s intelligence. It’s the kind of book you keep on a shelf near your mirror, not one you read once and pass along.
With over 11 years of experience in the publishing industry, Priya Srivastava has become a trusted guide for hundreds of authors navigating the challenging path from manuscript to marketplace. As Editor-in-Chief of Deified Publications, she combines the precision of a publishing professional with the empathy of a mentor who truly understands the fears, hopes, and dreams of both first-time and seasoned writers.