1. A system for formulating individualized product recommendations, the system comprising: a database containing product information and consumer information; and an intelligent performance-based product recommendation engine in communication with the database, the product recommendation engine adapted to: receive a request from a consumer including a first set of data regarding a target skin that includes a requirement to be addressed by a product, the consumer's product preference and performance requirement for the product, and objective data characterizing a skin condition to be addressed by the product and subjective data that correlate with subjective performance assessments of the product by the consumer, classify the consumer, based on the first set of data, in a population of consumers who previously used a product in a product category in connection with a substantially similar skin and who are substantially similar to the consumer, determine, based on the first set of data and the classification of the consumer, a preference and performance score for products in the product category representative of the likelihood that the products in the product category will satisfy the consumer's product preference and performance requirement when used in connection with the target substrate, select a set of products from the product category based on the preference score and performance score, the selected set of products comprising a set of individualized product recommendations as a list of top-N products and a scored predicted performance utility for each product from the product category and a scored predicted product preference utility for each product from the product category, and output the set of individualized product recommendations to the consumer.