Browser-only routine tool
Tick what you actually use. The planner puts your morning or evening routine in order, gives the reason for every position, adds the two waits that have a document behind them, and marks every rule that is only convention as convention. It rates no product and reaches no verdict about your skin.
14 routine steps, 9 cited sources, reviewed August 12, 2026
Build the sequence
Tick only what you genuinely use, not what you think you should. The interesting output is usually the note at the bottom about the combination, not the numbered list itself.
Or start from an example routine
The planner runs in your browser. Nothing you tick is submitted or saved.
Your morning order
3 of these positions rest on a cited document and 0 are standard practice we could not anchor to a primary source. Both are labelled below so you can weigh them differently.
Cleansing comes first so that everything after it lands on bare skin. The AAD advises fragrance-free products over harsh ones such as deodorant soaps for skin that is dry or sensitive-feeling.
Source: American Academy of Dermatology, Dermatologists' top tips for relieving dry skin
The AAD advises applying moisturizer while the skin is still damp after washing, because that is when there is surface water for the product to hold. It also notes that ointments and creams are more effective than lotions for dry skin.
Source: American Academy of Dermatology, Dermatologists' top tips for relieving dry skin
This is the step the AAD ties to damp skin. Applying it while the skin is still damp from washing gives the product surface water to hold rather than a dry surface to sit on.
Give the layer underneath a moment to settle so the sunscreen can be spread as an even film rather than mixed into what is under it. The settling time is convention. The 15 minutes the AAD gives is the time between finishing sunscreen and being protected outdoors, so start the routine with that in mind.
Source: American Academy of Dermatology, How to apply sunscreen
Sunscreen works as an unbroken film on the outside of everything else, so it is the last skincare step of the morning. The AAD notes it takes about 15 minutes for skin to absorb sunscreen and be protected, so it goes on before you go out rather than as you leave.
Source: American Academy of Dermatology, How to apply sunscreen
Use at least 1 teaspoon for the face, about the amount that covers the length of your index and middle fingers, and reapply every two hours outdoors and after swimming or sweating.
This is an ordering tool. It does not diagnose anything, evaluate a product, predict how your skin will react, or replace advice from a clinician about a prescription you have been given. Where a product label gives its own directions, the label wins. The ingredient decoder is the tool for working out what a given product is made of.
The honest version
Search for the order to apply skincare and you will find the same numbered list on hundreds of pages, delivered with total confidence and almost no citations. Thin to thick. Water before oil. Wait 60 seconds between every step. Some of that is sensible and some of it is repeated because it was repeated. Very little of it is anchored to anything you can go and read.
We built this planner the other way around. We started from documents that state a rule outright, put those rules in the tool, and marked everything else as convention in the output itself. That distinction is not decoration. If you know that the 20 to 30 minute retinoid wait comes from a prescribing label and that the 60 second wait between serums comes from nowhere in particular, you know which one to hold onto on a night when you are tired.
The result is a shorter list of hard rules than you might expect, and a much clearer one.
Sunscreen goes last
Not a preference. A sunscreen protects as a continuous film across the surface, so a product spread on top of it can disturb that film. The AAD adds the timing detail people usually miss: it takes about 15 minutes for skin to absorb sunscreen and be protected, which makes it the last step of the routine rather than the last thing you do before leaving.
Amount matters as much as order. At least 1 teaspoon for the face, about 1 ounce for the body, reapplied every two hours outdoors.
Occlusives go on top
An occlusive is defined by where it sits. Sethi 2016 describes the class as agents that form a hydrophobic barrier over the skin and slow water loss through it. A barrier applied in the middle of a routine is a barrier that everything after it has to cross, which defeats both the barrier and whatever came next.
Balms, ointments, salves, and whipped fats all belong at the end of the skin steps, under sunscreen in the morning.
Retinoids want dry skin
The tretinoin cream prescribing information is unusually specific. Apply once daily before bedtime. Wait 20 to 30 minutes after washing. The skin needs to be completely dry to minimize possible irritation. About a half inch on a fingertip covers the whole face.
That is a real instruction from a real label, and it is the reason a retinoid night is ordered differently from every other night.
The collision
The single most repeated piece of moisturizer advice is to apply it while the skin is still damp. The AAD gives it directly: apply moisturizer when your skin is still damp after a shower or bath, after washing your hands, and whenever skin feels dry. The logic is easy to see once you know what a moisturizer is made of. An occlusive does not add water, it slows the loss of water that is already there. Damp skin gives it something to hold.
Then you add a retinoid and the advice reverses. The label wants the surface completely dry and asks for a 20 to 30 minute gap after washing, because a damp surface is associated with more irritation. Both instructions are correct. They are simply about different products, and the internet tends to present each one as a universal law.
The planner does not pretend to dissolve the conflict. On a retinoid night it puts the dry-down first, the retinoid second, and the moisturizer after, and it tells you in the output that the damp-skin advantage is the thing you gave up. Knowing what you traded is more useful than being told there was never a trade.
There is a second reason the order around an occlusive is worth thinking about rather than automating. Zhai and Maibach reviewed what occlusion does to skin and found it changes stratum corneum hydration, barrier permeability, epidermal lipids, and more, and that it often, though not always, increases percutaneous absorption of whatever has been applied.
Read that carefully, because it cuts both ways. Sealing a treatment product under a balm is not a neutral finishing move. It can make the routine stronger than the one you thought you were doing, without a single product changing. That is neither good nor bad on its own. It is a fact about layering that most order guides skip.
A practical response, and the one the planner suggests, is to separate the jobs by area rather than by time. If the dry patch is on your cheeks and the treated area is your chin, the balm can go where the dryness is.
What the coverage data shows
One of the most useful studies for anyone thinking about layering had nothing to do with order. Lourenco and colleagues photographed 84 people under ultraviolet light after they applied an SPF 30 product in their normal way, once with a dedicated sunscreen and once with an SPF 30 moisturizer. The camera showed exactly where the product was and was not.
With the sunscreen, 11.1% of the whole face was missed. With the SPF moisturizer, 16.6% was missed. On the eyelid region the gap widened to 14.0% against 20.9%, and 78% of participants, 66 of the 84, failed to cover the inner corner of the eye with either product. Same people, same SPF number, different result, and the difference came from how the product was applied rather than from the chemistry in it.
That is a useful corrective to how much attention layering order gets. A perfectly ordered routine applied thinly and unevenly performs worse than a rough order applied properly. The planner shows you the sequence because the sequence is what people ask about, and it shows you the amount figures alongside it because those are the numbers that usually move the outcome.
The same principle applies to everything else on the list. A pea of balm worked between the fingers and pressed over a dry area does more than a thick smear that never reaches the edges.
Scope
It does not rate a product, rank a routine, or tell you that a step is unnecessary. It does not diagnose anything, and it makes no claim that any product treats, prevents, or improves a skin condition. It cannot predict how your skin will react to a sequence, because that depends on things no ordering tool has access to.
It does not invent wait times. Where a document gives one, the planner uses it and links the document. Where none exists, it says the interval is convention rather than filling the gap with a number that sounds authoritative.
Where a product label gives its own directions, the label wins over anything here. That is especially true for a prescription, where the instructions came with a clinician who knows something about you that this page does not.
If you want to know what is actually in a product before you decide where it goes, the ingredient decoder sorts a declaration into occlusives, emollients, and humectants, and the fragrance label checker handles the fragrance question narrowly.
Common questions
Moisturizer first, sunscreen last. Sunscreen has to sit on the outside as an unbroken film, and anything spread over it afterwards can pull that film into an uneven layer. The AAD notes it takes about 15 minutes for skin to absorb sunscreen and be protected, so the practical version of the rule is that sunscreen finishes your skincare and then you wait before going out, rather than applying it at the door.
For most steps, there is no sourced wait at all, and the planner does not invent one. The exception it does carry is the wait a retinoid label asks for. The tretinoin cream prescribing information instructs the user to wait 20 to 30 minutes after washing so that the skin is completely dry, because applying it to damp skin can increase irritation. Beyond that, letting a layer settle for a minute before the next one is ordinary practice rather than a tested interval, and the planner labels it that way.
Last of the things you put on the skin itself, after any lotion, cream, or oil. An occlusive works by sitting on the surface and slowing water loss, so anything applied over it has to get through it first. In the morning, sunscreen is the one exception that goes on top, because it also has to be the outermost layer to work.
Yes, and it is the one place where two pieces of standard advice genuinely collide. The usual guidance is to moisturize while the skin is still damp from washing. The tretinoin label asks for completely dry skin and a 20 to 30 minute wait. The planner resolves it by putting the dry-down before the retinoid and the moisturizer after it, and it says plainly that the damp-skin advantage is what you are trading away on those nights.
It depends on the formulation, which is why the planner flags it rather than ruling on it. Martin 1998 found that tretinoin combined with benzoyl peroxide and light degraded by more than 50% in about 2 hours and by 95% at 24 hours, while adapalene stayed stable. A later study of an optimized tretinoin gel at 0.05% found no such degradation. The common way around the uncertainty is to use the two at different times of day.
It can. Zhai and Maibach describe occlusion as changing stratum corneum hydration and barrier permeability, and report that it often, though not always, increases how much of an applied chemical is absorbed. That is not a warning about any particular product, it is a reason to treat a balm over an active as a different routine from the active alone, and to consider applying the balm only where the dryness actually is.
No. It orders what you tick and explains each position. It gives no product rating, no safety score, no suitability verdict, and no diagnosis, and it cannot know how your skin will respond to anything. Where a product label gives its own directions, follow the label.
The last step on the list
Whipped Tallow Cream and Beef Tallow Balm are anhydrous, which is exactly why the planner puts them last: they have no water to donate and work by sitting over the water that is already there. Amazon shows the current product listing, package, price, availability, delivery options, and customer reviews.
Ingredients shown: 100% Grass-Fed New Zealand Beef Tallow.
Ingredients shown: Check the full ingredient statement on the current package.