New dating app Ickz promises to filter-out your biggest turn-offs to help find love

We have Tinder, Bumble, Hinge and hundreds of other apps designed to help us find love but for many, the dates that result from the swiping are a constant source of disappointment.

Now a new app has entered the fray. Ickz, which launches in London today, promises to revolutionise online dating by allowing users to filter prospective matches by their ‘icks’ or instant turnoffs, to increase their chances of finding love online.

A term popularised by reality shows such as Love Island, an ‘ick’ refers to something specific that suddenly stops your attraction to someone.

These usually small bugbears can be wide-ranging: from a date’s sartorial choices – ‘loafers without socks’, ‘ripped skinny jeans’ and ‘Velcro trainers’ all come up – to language idiosyncrasies such as ‘saying tummy rather than stomach’ or ‘using a baby voice’.

The icks also include objectively inoffensive habits such as ‘using their phone to follow directions’ or ‘owning a pencil case’. 

An advertisement in the underground which shows what Hannah’s icks are, including those who live in Clapham and men who say ‘tummy’

Choice of where to live doesn’t escape ick status, with Clapham in south-west London flagged as a divisive location.

Ickz allows daters to list their own turnoffs and its world-first algorithm uses the latest AI image-recognition technology paired with psychometric testing to filter out potential love matches who display those traits.

Ickz is the brainchild of the team behind fashion and beauty recommendations site eliza.co.uk. The group of millennial and gen Z women found they were consistently getting the ick on dates and felt there must be a way to avoid the disappointment.

App creator and online dater Hannah Thompson, 24, says: ‘I was so tired of turning up to dates, thinking we would be compatible, only to find out five minutes in that they used the emoji un-ironically or thought it was hot to use baby talk. 

‘I wanted to create an app that took the ick out of dating (or at least as much as possible).’

As news of the launch reached daters in London, some expressed dismay at what could be considered an ick. ‘I only just moved to Clapham, now I might have to move – and throw out half my shoes too,’ said one prospective user who asked not to be named.

Ickz launches in London 1 April 2023.