The idea
The load scale
Every product we make carries a number from 0 to 5. It is how much a single use asks of your skin barrier — not how strong the product sounds, not how well it works, and not anything about you. Add up your week and keep the total under 12.
Why a number at all
A skincare shelf gives you no way to add anything up. Each product arrives with its own instructions, each set of instructions assumes it is the only thing you are using, and every label says gentle. So a routine grows one reasonable decision at a time until someone is running an exfoliating acid on Monday, a retinoid on Tuesday, a stronger acid at the weekend and a vitamin C every morning — and concludes, reasonably enough, that they have sensitive skin.
Usually they do not. They have a barrier that is not being given time between demands. The fix is almost never a better product; it is fewer loaded nights.
The load scale exists so that is visible before you buy rather than six weeks in. One number per product, printed on the carton and shown on every card, that you can total for a week.
What each number means
Rest
Load 0
Asks nothing of the barrier. Cleansers, moisturisers and sunscreen sit here — use them every day, including the days you are recovering from something else.
Light
Load 1–2
A daily-tolerable active. Most skin can run one of these every day indefinitely without the barrier noticing.
Measured
Load 3–4
Two to four nights a week for most people, built up from one. Leave an unloaded night on either side while you are finding your pace.
Heavy
Load 5
Once a week at the outside, and never in the same week you started something else new. Nothing else loaded on the same night.
The weekly budget
12 across seven days. That figure is a starting point rather than a law: it is set where most skin can run a daily light active plus two or three properly-spaced loaded nights and stay comfortable.
Three things matter more than the total itself. Do not put two loaded products on the same night. Leave an unloaded night after a 4 or a 5. And do not introduce two new products in the same week, because if something reacts you will not know which one did it.
If your skin is comfortable at 12 you are welcome to sit there indefinitely. If it is not, the answer is a smaller number, not a different brand.
Worth knowing
- Load 0 products never count. Cleansers, moisturisers, the hydrating serum, the eye cream and both sunscreens are free on any day, including the days you are recovering.
- Sunscreen is the one product that makes the rest of a routine safer rather than costlier. If you run anything above load 2 you want it every morning.
- A week that goes badly is not a week to make up for. Drop to nothing but load 0 until skin is comfortable, then add one product back.
What the scale is not
It is our own scale. It is not an industry standard, not a clinical measure, and not validated by anyone but us. We publish it because a rough shared unit is more useful than no unit, not because it is precise.
It rates the formula, never the person. There is no such thing as someone who can “handle a 5”. A high number means the product asks a lot of any barrier, and the correct response to that is spacing, not endurance.
It says nothing about how well something works. Load is what a product costs, not what it is worth — the Recovery Cream is a 0 and it is one of the most useful things we make.
And it is not medical guidance. These are cosmetic products. If you have a diagnosed skin condition, are pregnant or breastfeeding, or are using a prescribed topical, talk to a clinician before adding anything new — several products here carry specific cautions on those points, and they are on each product page.
Every product, by load
18 rated products. Routines are not listed here — they carry a weekly total rather than a per-use number, and putting the two in one table would misstate both.