Skincare and Makeup Guides
Retinol sandwich method: what it is and the half version we'd use
Moisturizer, retinol, more moisturizer. With Collagen and Retinol Serum, skip the bottom layer and start on Monday and Thursday evenings.
Learn moreShould you use glycolic acid and retinol on the same night?
We'd introduce retinol first and keep glycolic acid on separate evenings. Our night-by-night week, plus the FDA's sun advice that comes with the acid.
Learn moreEye cream before or after retinol? Our evening order
Eye cream goes after retinol in our routine. Collagen and Retinol Serum comes first on a dry face, then Active Eye Cream along the orbital bone, then moisturizer. We also cover which evenings to use the serum and what to do if the eye area stings.
Learn moreHow to use peptides and retinol together
Yes, both can go in one routine. Our schedule starts Collagen and Retinol Serum first and adds Firm Serum to your mornings about a month later, each in its own time slot.
Learn moreShould hyaluronic acid serum go on damp or dry skin?
Damp skin, then moisturizer right away, is how LYTA's Hyaluronic Acid Serum goes on. If yours is another brand's, start with its label. We also cover retinol evenings and what two hyaluronic acid studies measured.
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Why your order takes 8 to 14 business days
LYTA products are made to order: usually 5 to 9 business days of production, then 3 to 5 business days of standard US shipping from Texas.
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How to read an ingredient list in ten minutes
Nearly every product page here prints the full ingredient list. Most people scroll past it, which is fair, because it looks like this: Aqua, Dimethicone, Glycerin, Cetearyl Alcohol, Phenoxyethanol, Sodium Hyaluronate. That is not a language anyone speaks. It is worth ten minutes of your life to learn, because it is the only part of a beauty product that cannot lie to you. The order is the whole story Ingredients are listed by weight, highest first, down to one percent. After that they can be in any order. This single rule tells you more than any marketing claim. If a serum shouts about vitamin C and ascorbate appears second to last, next to the fragrance, you are buying water with a rumor of vitamin C in it. If it appears in the first five, you are buying an actual vitamin C serum. Six ingredients worth recognizing Aqua is water. It is first in almost everything and that is normal, not a scandal. Glycerin pulls water into the skin. Cheap, ancient, works. Sodium hyaluronate is the salt form of hyaluronic acid. It holds water in the upper layers of the skin. Squalane is a lightweight oil, usually from olives or sugarcane, that most skin tolerates including oily skin. Niacinamide is vitamin B3. It is one of the most studied ingredients for the skin barrier, the look of redness and oily skin. One of the few actives almost nobody reacts badly to. Phenoxyethanol is a preservative. Yes it is synthetic. It is also the reason your moisturizer is not growing a colony of bacteria in a warm bathroom. Parfum is the one that hides things The word parfum or fragrance can legally cover dozens of individual compounds that never have to be listed. If you have reactive skin and you cannot work out what is setting it off, this is the first place to look, and it is why fragrance free is a genuinely useful thing to look for rather than a marketing pose. What the list will not tell you Concentration, beyond the ordering rule. Formulation quality. Whether two actives cancel each other out. An ingredient list is evidence, not a verdict. But it will instantly tell you whether the star ingredient on the front of the bottle is actually in the bottle. That is a low bar, and a surprising number of products fail it. See the skincare range, ingredient lists and all.
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What vegan actually means on a beauty label
Vegan is one of the most used words in beauty and one of the least explained. It is worth knowing exactly what it does and does not tell you, because two of the things people assume it means are simply not true. What vegan actually means A vegan formula contains no animal derived ingredients. That is the whole definition. In practice it rules out a specific and fairly short list: Carmine, a red pigment made from crushed cochineal insects, which is extremely common in red lipstick and blush Beeswax, in balms, mascaras and cream products Lanolin, from sheep wool, in lip and hand products Collagen and keratin, when they come from animal sources Squalene with an e, historically from shark liver, as opposed to squalane with an a, which is usually olive or sugarcane derived What it does not mean Vegan does not mean cruelty free. These are two entirely separate claims. A formula can contain zero animal ingredients and still have been tested on animals somewhere in the supply chain. Conversely a cruelty free brand can happily use beeswax. If both matter to you, both need to be stated, and on our product pages they are. Vegan does not mean natural or organic. Petroleum is vegan. So are silicones and synthetic preservatives. A vegan label tells you what a formula avoids, not what it is made of. Vegan does not mean gentler. Plenty of plant extracts are more sensitizing than the synthetic ingredients they replace. Essential oils are the obvious example. Why red lipstick is the hard one Carmine has been the beauty industry's default red for centuries because it is genuinely brilliant. It is vivid, stable and does not stain the way synthetic reds can. Making a red that performs as well without it takes real formulation work, which is why plenty of otherwise vegan ranges quietly have a gap where the reds should be. How to check anything, anywhere Read the ingredient list and look for four words: carmine or CI 75470, cera alba or beeswax, lanolin, and shellac. If none of them are there, you are almost certainly fine. That is a thirty second check that works on any brand, not just ours. That is why we print the full ingredient list on our product pages. Browse the vegan range or see everything that is cruelty free.
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How to find your foundation shade without buying five bottles
Foundation is the only makeup product people routinely buy wrong, and then blame themselves for. It is not you. Shade names are marketing, undertones are invisible under store lighting, and the swatch on the back of your hand is nowhere near the color of your face. Here is how to get it right without buying five bottles. Test on your jaw, never on your hand The skin on the back of your hand is usually a shade or two darker than your face and a completely different undertone. Swatch along the jawline instead, three stripes side by side, and walk to a window. The one that disappears is yours. If you cannot tell which disappeared, that is the answer: it is the one you cannot see. Work out your undertone in ten seconds Look at the veins on the inside of your wrist in daylight. Blue or purple, you are cool. Look for shades described as rose, porcelain, or anything with pink in the name. Green or olive, you are warm. Golden, sand, honey, beige. You genuinely cannot tell, you are neutral, and you have the easiest job of anyone reading this. Undertone matters more than depth. A foundation that is slightly too light but the right undertone looks like skin. One that is the perfect depth and the wrong undertone looks like a mask, and no amount of blending fixes it. Buy for the season you are in now Most people are one to two shades darker in August than in February. If you own one foundation, buy it for your winter face and warm it up in summer with bronzer. If you own two, you already know this. Coverage is a choice, not a quality rating Full coverage is not better foundation, it is a different product for a different day. Tinted moisturizer when you want to look like you slept well Regular foundation for most days Full cover when there is a camera, a wedding, or a bad week The two minute rule Foundation oxidizes. Whatever shade it looks in the first thirty seconds, wait two minutes and look again. Many foundations pull darker or more orange as they set, and a shade that matched perfectly on application can be visibly wrong by the time you leave the house. Apply, wait, then judge. It is the single easiest way to avoid a bottle you never finish. See the full face range, or start with our Start Here picks.
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