The protocol
Why twenty-eight days, and not twenty-seven.
The number is biological, not marketing. Skin sheds and replaces its outer layer — the stratum corneum — in roughly twenty-eight days in healthy adult skin, longer as you age. Every active you apply, every peel you tolerate, every gram of hydration you reclaim, has to wait for those cells to surface before you see it in the mirror. Twenty-eight days is the shortest honest window in which a structured program can produce a measurable, photographable change. Anything shorter peaks too late. Anything longer is welcome, but isn't required for a single, beautiful tier of finishing work.
So we built around the cycle, not against it. A four-chapter arc — Reset, Build, Refine, Polish — paced to one full turnover, with each week doing one job well. The protocol is dermatologist-vetted, conservative on purpose, and adaptive: your photos and your messages tell us how fast to advance the actives, and we adjust quietly in the background. You don't have to manage the dials. You just have to show up.
I · Days 1 to 7
Reset
What we’re doing
Editing. Most clients arrive over-routined — three serums, two acids, a retinoid every night, a barrier that forgot how to hold water. We pause what isn't earning its place and rebuild the floor. A gentle ceramide cleanser. A vitamin C in the morning. Hydration. Sunscreen, every single day, without negotiation. If a light superficial peel makes sense for your skin type, it goes here, on day one, where there's still room to recover. Botox, if it's part of your story, lands in this window so it has fourteen days to reach peak.
What you feel
Less. That's the point. By the end of the week your skin stops feeling busy. You may notice slight tightness mid-week as the barrier resets. We expect that. It passes.
What we hard-stop
Anything new from your bathroom counter. No new actives, no new devices, no late-night research-spirals. The protocol is the protocol.
II · Days 8 to 14
Build
What we’re doing
Adding, carefully. This is the week of the first real treatment — usually a HydraFacial, sometimes a second light peel, sometimes a lymphatic drainage facial depending on what week one revealed. Actives advance: peptides come in on the off-nights, your retinoid resumes at a frequency your skin can hold. If you're a candidate for a lash lift, it happens here. The studio is paying attention to your photos for redness and tolerance, and quietly turning the dial up only when the data says yes.
What you feel
Competent. The morning ritual is automatic now. Your skin is starting to respond — clearer, calmer, the makeup goes on differently. People notice but can't place it. That's our favorite week.
What we hard-stop
Microneedling without prior tolerance, RF, anything that bruises. We are inside the buffer zone now.
III · Days 15 to 21
Refine
What we’re doing
Precision. The actives are dialed. Hydration is held. We may run a second HydraFacial with a brightening boost, or a final light peel for skin types that tolerated the first one well. Brow lamination, if you want it, lands in this window so it has time to settle. LED, two or three times. We are no longer introducing anything new, and you can feel that decision in the calendar.
What you feel
A little nervous, often. The day is close enough now that the brain starts asking am I doing enough. You are. The protocol reads your stress and gets quieter, not louder. We send fewer messages this week, on purpose.
What we hard-stop
New products of any kind. From day fifteen forward, the only ingredients touching your face are the ones your skin has already met.
IV · Days 22 to 28
Polish
What we’re doing
Finishing, and waiting. A dermaplane and a final HydraFacial early in the week, before the buffer closes. Your retinoid stops on day twenty-four. A lymphatic drainage facial mid-week to take the puff out. By day twenty-six, the routine is three steps. By day twenty-seven, it's two. By the morning of day twenty-eight, it's a cool compress, a gentle cleanse, a hydrating serum, a moisturizer, sunscreen, primer. That's the whole thing.
What you feel
Calm, and a little reverent. The work is done. The studio gets out of your way.
What we hard-stop
Filler, microneedling, any peel, any new product, any experiment, any second-guessing. The plan was the plan. We trust it now.
Day 0 and Day +1
On the morning of your day, the app goes quiet. One screen, one sentence: You did the work. You are ready. No checklist, no nudge, no streak to protect. You walk into your day already finished.
The morning after, something else opens — a small, edited reel of the twenty-eight days, and a single line: Welcome to the Afterglow. Your skin doesn't have to stop here. It rarely wants to.