Heavenly – Plugin of skin routine recommender

Custom Plugins

This theme includes a custom WordPress plugin developed specifically for this project:

• Heavenly – Skin Routine Recommender
  A shortcode-based WordPress plugin that recommends skincare routines based on the user's skin type and main concern. See the themes repo documentation: here

Description

Heavenly – Skin Routine Recommender is a simple shortcode-based plugin designed to help users choose an appropriate skincare routine. This plugin is intentionally kept simple to demonstrate core WordPress concepts such as shortcodes, sanitization, and URL-based filtering.

The plugin:

• Collects skin type and main concern via a form

• Displays a recommended routine directly on the page

• Links users to filtered product recommendations

This plugin is intentionally kept simple to demonstrate core WordPress concepts such as shortcodes, sanitization, and URL-based filtering.

Features

• Shortcode-based integration

• Skin type selection, dry, oily, sensitive, normal

• Optional skin concern selection

• Server-side input sanitization

• Generates product filtering links using URL parameters

• No dependencies or external libraries

Installation

Copy the plugin folder into wp-content/plugins/heavenly-skin-routine/

Ensure the main plugin file is named for example: heavenly-skin-routine.php

Activate the plugin from the WordPress admin panel Plugins > Installed Plugins

Usage

Insert the shortcode below into any page or post:

[skin_routine]

This will render:

• A form for selecting skin type and concern

• A recommendation after submission

• A button linking to recommended products

How it works

Form handling

The plugin processes user input through a POST-based form submission. All submitted values are sanitized using WordPress’ built-in sanitize_text_field function to ensure safe and reliable handling of user data. The recommendation logic is executed only after the form has been submitted, which prevents unnecessary processing and ensures predictable behavior.

Example generated URL:

/products?cat=recommended-dry

Recommendation logic

The recommended skincare routine is determined primarily by the selected skin type, which controls the core decision logic of the plugin. The selected skin concern is displayed to the user for informational purposes only and does not affect the recommendation logic, which is a deliberate UX design choice to keep the system simple and transparent. Product recommendations are handled by generating URLs with query parameters, allowing seamless integration with existing category-based product filtering on the products page.