Is there an app that schedules retinol every other night?
Short version: yes, it is free, and it also knows that two products on opposite nights are not a clash.
Why a schedule needs to live in the checklist
Every skincare guide says "start retinol every other night" and "put acids on the nights you skip it." Almost nobody keeps that straight for more than a week, because the advice lives in an article and the routine lives on a bathroom shelf. Selv puts the schedule where the routine is: open the app at night and it shows the products that are on tonight, and only those. The retinol you are meant to skip is not a temptation to resist; it is simply not on the list.
What the schedule knows that a calendar does not
Selv checks your routine against 100 ingredient interaction rules. A retinoid and an exfoliating acid in the same routine would normally trigger a warning. If they are on opposite alternating nights, the app can see that they will not share a night, so instead of a warning you get a quiet note that your schedule keeps them apart. If their schedules only sometimes overlap, the warning stays and says how often the two meet. And on any non-prescription clash, one tap on "alternate their nights for me" puts the two products on opposite days starting tonight.
What it does for prescriptions, and what it will not do
Prescription retinoids like tretinoin, tazarotene, and trifarotene are recognized by name and kept on a daily default, because the prescriber sets that cadence, not an app. Any pairing that involves a prescription stays flagged for your dermatologist no matter how the products are spaced; the app does not offer to schedule those apart, because scheduling is not what makes a prescription combination safe.
The rest of the feature, briefly
- Cadences: every day, every other day, 2x a week (anchored to the weekday you set it), once a week.
- Progress, completion, and streak count only tonight's scheduled steps.
- Product levels go down with each check-off, estimated from the product type and size, so the running-low nudge arrives on its own.
- Everything runs on the phone. No account is required, and without one nothing is collected. An optional account, offered in the US, can keep a copy of your routine.
What it costs
Selv is free, with no subscription and no paid tier, and recommendations can never be bought by brands. It earns through clearly disclosed affiliate links when you choose to shop, at no extra cost to you. It is on the iOS App Store as Selv Skin: Routine Tracker, available worldwide.
Common questions
Can it schedule an exfoliant twice a week on specific days?
Yes. Pick 2x a week and it anchors to the day you set it, so a Monday setting runs Monday and Thursday. Once a week works the same way.
Does it move retinol to every other night without asking?
Only when you first add an over-the-counter retinoid or exfoliating acid, as a starter cadence, and it tells you. Change any product to any cadence in one tap. Prescription retinoids stay daily by default.
What happens on a night when everything is resting?
The checklist shows a rest night and lists your products with the day each comes back. It happens rarely, since cleansers and moisturizers are daily.
Selv checks this for you.
A free iPhone app that knows the right order for your routine and warns you when ingredients clash. No account needed, nothing to buy, and without an account nothing leaves your phone.
