How long to wait between skincare steps
Wait until the layer you just put on no longer feels wet to the touch, then go on to the next step. There is no single number of seconds that fits every product, and where a label names a waiting time, the label wins.
Why there is no single number
The cue is tactile, not timed. A layer that still feels wet under your fingers is still wet; one that feels dry is dry. That is the whole test, and your fingers already know how to run it.
Some products name the wait themselves, on the box or in the leaflet. Where a label does that, follow it: it was written for that one formula, and a general rule was not.
Where the label says nothing, there is nothing to look up, and we are not going to put a number there to make this page feel more useful. Glossa does not tell you how long a product needs. It times the step you set, and the length is yours.
Where routines actually break
A routine is a sequence, and sequences break in the gaps. Waiting is dead time: nothing is happening, your hands are free, and the phone is within reach. One scroll later the next step is a vague intention rather than a thing you are doing.
That is the problem Glossa was built around. Not forgetting that you have a routine — losing the thread in the middle of one.
How Glossa fills the wait
Glossa puts your real products on an illustrated shelf with a mirror above it, and plays each step of your routine as a small scene in that mirror. The gap between steps is where the scene lives, so you spend it looking at your routine rather than away from it.
Steps carry timers, so a wait has a shape instead of being a guess. Morning and evening are separate scenes, and the room changes with the light.
Products get onto the shelf from one photo of them. What the photo reads is matched against a catalog of 19,550 products from 6,006 brands, and if something is not in there you add it by hand. Typing your shelf in works exactly as well as the photo, and it sends nothing anywhere.
Streaks here are gentle. A skipped day is not punished and it is not held against you. Diamonds are earned by doing the routine, never bought with money.
Your routine, your notes and your history stay on your iPhone. The shelf photo leaves your phone only if you choose to take one, and it is not stored.
What Glossa does not do
Glossa is not a health product. It does not look at your skin, and it does not tell you what to put on it.
Glossa shows the routine you built. It does not build one for you.
iPhone only, and Android is not planned.
Glossa at a glance
- Platform: iPhone, iOS 17 or later
- Android: no, and not planned
- Price: $6.99 per month, or $39.99 per year
- Free trial: 3 days, on both plans
- Products in the catalog: 19,550 from 6,006 brands
- Accounts: none, nothing to sign up for
- Analytics: none, on the site or in the app
- On the App Store: not yet
Coming soon to iPhone