Alloy / Tretinoin Face Cream Rx
TRETINOIN + NIACINAMIDE + ALOE · THREE UNNAMED STRENGTHS
The first Alloy product to publish a fill weight and a dose — 30 grams, a pea-sized amount nightly — which finally makes one of their supply claims checkable. It is also a teratogen-class topical sold to perimenopausal women with no pregnancy warning, no side effects, no sunscreen instruction, and three strengths of which none is named.
There is a real reason to hesitate. Read the finding before you buy.
ASSESSED ON 75% OF THE MODEL. 2 CRITERIA LEFT UNSCORED — SEE SCORING FOR WHY.
Ask which of the three strengths you have been given, in per cent. And if there is any chance of pregnancy, ask about that too — perimenopause is not infertility, and this page says nothing.
The verdict
Three things here are firsts for Alloy and all three are welcome. The fill weight is published — 30 grams. The dose is published — a pea-sized amount, applied at night, to forehead, cheeks and chin. And because both are given, the three-month supply claim can finally be checked: 30 grams over ninety nights is about a third of a gram a night, which is roughly what a pea-sized facial application weighs. It holds up. That is the first claim from this company we have been able to verify with arithmetic rather than take on trust, and it makes cost per application computable at around a pound a gram.
The formula is sensible too. Tretinoin is the best-evidenced topical for photoageing by a distance, niacinamide is the correct partner for a retinoid because it damps the irritation that makes people quit, and aloe is doing vehicle duty. Three ingredients, no decoration. We praised a competitor for exactly this restraint.
Then the page tells you nothing else. This is tretinoin — a drug contraindicated in pregnancy, whose defining feature is a weeks-long irritation phase, and which increases photosensitivity. Searched across the whole page: pregnancy zero, breastfeeding zero, contraception zero, birth defects zero, side effects zero, irritation zero, peeling zero, sunscreen zero, SPF zero. Alloy's own market is perimenopausal women, a word this page uses twice, and perimenopause means periods have not yet stopped — which means pregnancy remains possible and contraception is still advised.
And the disclosure that improved elsewhere collapses here. 'Alloy offers three different strengths of Tretinoin' and names none of them, in a register where we have recorded tretinoin from 0.001% to 0.1%. Meanwhile 'Full list of ingredients: Tretinoin, Aloe, Niacinamide' appears on a page selling a cream, which cannot consist of three ingredients — and appears on the same website where the M4 eye cream's full list runs to twenty items with three concentrations attached.
- Publishes the fill weight — 30 grams — the first Alloy product to do so.
- Publishes the dose: a pea-sized amount, at night, to forehead, cheeks and chin.
- The three-month supply claim checks out against the stated dose, which makes it the first verifiable claim in the range.
- Cost per application is computable for the first time here: about $3 a gram, roughly a dollar a night.
- Tretinoin is the best-evidenced topical for photoageing there is.
- Niacinamide is the correct partner active, included for tolerance rather than for the label.
- Three ingredients and no decoration.
- Uses the word 'compounded' plainly, seven times.
- A realistic twelve-week timeline, and accurate menopausal collagen figures.
- $30 a month with unlimited doctor access, free delivery and HSA/FSA eligibility.
- No pregnancy warning on a teratogen-class topical, sold to a perimenopausal audience who can still conceive.
- Zero mentions of breastfeeding, contraception or birth defects.
- Zero mentions of side effects, irritation, peeling or retinisation, on the drug defined by them.
- Zero mentions of sunscreen or SPF, on a drug that increases photosensitivity.
- Three strengths of tretinoin are offered and none is published.
- 'Full list of ingredients: Tretinoin, Aloe, Niacinamide' cannot be a full list for a cream.
- The same phrase on Alloy's eye cream page yields twenty ingredients and three concentrations.
- No concentration for the niacinamide either, so its irritation-damping role cannot be assessed.
- The Safety Information tab contains a product description, for the fourth time in four Alloy pages.
Every active, assessed
- TretinoinNOT PUBLISHED — THREE STRENGTHS OFFERED
Retinoid — binds nuclear RAR, upregulates procollagen, normalises keratinisation
- BENCHMARK
- 0.025%–0.1% is the trial range for photoageing
- ASSESSMENT
- The right drug and an unknown dose. Three strengths exist and none is named, which is the single most consequential omission possible for this molecule: the register has recorded tretinoin at 0.001% in one product and 0.1% in another, a hundredfold span, with the photoageing evidence occupying only the top of it. A buyer told they are on 'the lowest strength' has no idea whether that means a real dose or a token one.
- NiacinamideNOT PUBLISHED
Barrier support, anti-inflammatory, reduces retinoid irritation
- BENCHMARK
- 2%–5% is the evidenced range
- ASSESSMENT
- The correct companion for a retinoid and the reason a compounded combination is defensible rather than gratuitous — niacinamide reduces the irritation that determines whether anyone is still applying this at month three. Unpublished strength, as with everything else on this page.
- AloeNOT PUBLISHED
Soothing vehicle component
- BENCHMARK
- Vehicle-level inclusion
- ASSESSMENT
- Doing vehicle duty, and honestly enough — it is not presented as a headline active. Its presence in a three-item 'full list of ingredients' is the giveaway that the list is describing what was compounded in rather than what is in the tube.
| ACTIVE | CONC. | BENCHMARK | ASSESSMENT |
|---|---|---|---|
| TretinoinRetinoid — binds nuclear RAR, upregulates procollagen, normalises keratinisation | NOT PUBLISHED — THREE STRENGTHS OFFERED | 0.025%–0.1% is the trial range for photoageing | The right drug and an unknown dose. Three strengths exist and none is named, which is the single most consequential omission possible for this molecule: the register has recorded tretinoin at 0.001% in one product and 0.1% in another, a hundredfold span, with the photoageing evidence occupying only the top of it. A buyer told they are on 'the lowest strength' has no idea whether that means a real dose or a token one. |
| NiacinamideBarrier support, anti-inflammatory, reduces retinoid irritation | NOT PUBLISHED | 2%–5% is the evidenced range | The correct companion for a retinoid and the reason a compounded combination is defensible rather than gratuitous — niacinamide reduces the irritation that determines whether anyone is still applying this at month three. Unpublished strength, as with everything else on this page. |
| AloeSoothing vehicle component | NOT PUBLISHED | Vehicle-level inclusion | Doing vehicle duty, and honestly enough — it is not presented as a headline active. Its presence in a three-item 'full list of ingredients' is the giveaway that the list is describing what was compounded in rather than what is in the tube. |
Scoring
- EVIDENCE FOR THE ACTIVEWEIGHT 30%70/100
Tretinoin has the strongest evidence base of any topical for photoageing, niacinamide has independent support, and the twelve-week timeline is honest. Held back hard because three strengths are offered and none is published, so nothing can be checked against the 0.025%–0.1% trial range — and this register has already recorded tretinoin a hundredfold below that range in a comparable product.
- FORMULATION INTEGRITYWEIGHT 20%58/100
A clean, focused three-part formula with the right partner active and no decoration, in a product that finally states its fill weight. Marked down because 'Full list of ingredients: Tretinoin, Aloe, Niacinamide' is not a full ingredient list for a cream, and because the same phrase on this company's eye cream page delivers twenty ingredients and three concentrations. No strength is given for any of the three actives.
- DISCLOSUREWEIGHT 15%28/100
The worst in the Alloy range despite the improvements, because of what this particular drug requires. Zero mentions of pregnancy, breastfeeding, contraception or birth defects on a teratogen-class topical marketed to perimenopausal women. Zero side effects, zero irritation, zero peeling on a retinoid. Zero sunscreen on a photosensitiser. Three unnamed strengths, and a three-item list called a full list. Against that, real credit: 30 grams and a pea-sized nightly dose are both firsts for this company.
- TOLERANCE IN USEWEIGHT 15%NOT ASSESSED
Not assessed, and this is the product in the Alloy range where it matters most. Retinisation — weeks of dryness, flaking and redness — is the reason most people abandon tretinoin, and the page does not mention that it happens, let alone how to manage it.
- TEXTURE & WEARWEIGHT 10%NOT ASSESSED
Not assessed. Requires the product in hand across the retinisation window.
- COST PER APPLICATIONWEIGHT 10%74/100
The first computable cost per application in the Alloy range, and it is good: $90 for 30 grams is $3 a gram, and a pea-sized nightly application of roughly a third of a gram works out near a dollar a night, with unlimited physician access, delivery and HSA/FSA eligibility included. The stated three-month supply also checks out arithmetically against the stated dose, which no other Alloy claim has allowed us to verify.
What it is
A compounded prescription tretinoin cream with niacinamide and aloe, prescribed after an online intake reviewed by a menopause-trained physician. $90 for 30 grams, described as a three-month supply — $30 a month — including unlimited doctor access, free delivery and HSA/FSA eligibility. Three strengths are offered.
Finally, a claim we can check
Across three previous Alloy reviews we wrote the same sentence: one bottle, no volume, no dose, so nothing can be verified. This page breaks that.
It states 30 grams. It states a pea-sized amount, at night, to forehead, cheeks and chin. Thirty grams across ninety nights is 0.33 g a night, and a pea-sized application to a full face weighs roughly that. The three-month supply claim is arithmetically sound, and we can say so because Alloy gave us both numbers.
$90 for 30 grams is $3 a gram, or about a dollar a night, with a prescriber and delivery included. That is good value for compounded tretinoin with niacinamide, and more importantly it is knowable value. Twenty-six reviews have scored the cost criterion poorly for want of a fill size; this is one of the few pages that supplies one.
The formula is equally unfussy. Tretinoin does the work, niacinamide reduces the irritation that makes people stop, aloe carries it. We criticised Musely's eye serum for eight named actives and praised its anti-ageing cream for three. This is three.
Three strengths, and not one number
'Alloy offers three different strengths of Tretinoin to address individual skin needs.' That is the entire disclosure.
For most molecules that would be a gap. For this one it is the gap, because tretinoin's dose range in this market is not narrow.
Alloy offers three strengths and publishes none. Across this register we have recorded tretinoin at 0.001%, 0.01%, 0.015%, 0.02%, 0.025%, 0.05%, 0.07% and 0.1% — a hundredfold span, of which only the top portion is inside the photoageing trial range. Told only that you are on 'the lowest strength', you cannot tell which end of that chart you are standing on.
Alongside it sits a second oddity. The page says: 'Full list of ingredients: Tretinoin, Aloe, Niacinamide.' A cream cannot be made of three things — it needs water, an emulsifier, a preservative, a thickener at minimum. What this describes is what was compounded in, not what is in the tube.
That would be a small complaint anywhere else. Here it is notable because we spent the previous review praising the same company's eye cream, whose identically-worded 'Full list of ingredients' delivers twenty items and three concentrations. The same phrase, on the same website, means two entirely different things.
A retinoid page with no retinoid safety on it
Tretinoin has three things every prescriber says at handover: it will irritate for the first several weeks, it makes you burn more easily so wear sunscreen, and do not use it if you are or might become pregnant.
We searched the page for all three. Irritation: zero. Peeling: zero. Retinisation: zero. Sunscreen: zero. SPF: zero. Pregnancy: zero. Breastfeeding: zero. Contraception: zero. Birth defects: zero. Side effects: zero.
This matters more here than it would on a general skincare site. Alloy sells exclusively to perimenopausal and menopausal women, and this page uses the word perimenopause twice. Perimenopause means periods have not yet stopped for twelve months — which means ovulation still occurs, pregnancy remains possible, and standard guidance is that contraception continues until a year after the final period, or two years if under fifty. A meaningful share of this page's intended readers can conceive, and it is selling them a drug that is contraindicated if they do.
We should be proportionate about the risk itself. Topical tretinoin is absorbed minimally and the evidence that it causes fetal harm in practice is weak — this is not isotretinoin, and the register said as much when Ro published a pregnancy statement that made exactly that distinction honestly. The point is not that this cream is dangerous. It is that every other company selling tretinoin in this register manages to say something, and the one selling it to women who may still be ovulating says nothing at all.
Six things a buyer of a compounded prescription needs: the active's concentration, a genuine full ingredient list, the fill size, the dose per application, any safety content, and results attributed to how they were measured. No Alloy page supplies more than three, no two pages supply the same three, and none supplies safety content.
Read across that chart and the shape of the problem is clear. Alloy can publish concentrations — it does on two pages. It can publish a fill size and a dose — it does on this one. It can attribute results to a measurement method — it does on the eye cream. It has simply never done all of them at once, and it has never once published safety information under the heading marked Safety Information.
If you are considering it
- Ask which of the three strengths you have been prescribed, as a percentage. If the answer is below 0.025%, ask what the evidence for it is.
- If there is any possibility of pregnancy, raise it before ordering. Perimenopause does not settle that question.
- Expect four to six weeks of dryness, flaking and redness. The page does not mention it; it is normal and it passes.
- Start on alternate nights and build up, whatever the strength.
- Buy sunscreen and wear it daily. Tretinoin increases photosensitivity and nothing here says so.
- Use the pea-sized amount as instructed — more is not better and will only increase the irritation.
- Check the maths yourself: 30 grams, a third of a gram a night, ninety nights. It works out, which is worth knowing.
- Give it twelve weeks before judging it.
Where we stand
At 59 this ties the M4 face cream and sits below the eye cream, and it gets there by an almost perfectly inverted route. The eye cream publishes every concentration and no dose; this publishes the dose and no concentration. The eye cream is the best-specified formula in the register; this is the first Alloy claim we could verify with arithmetic. Both have the same empty safety section.
The caution here is narrower than on the estriol products and, in one respect, harder to excuse. Estriol's risk profile is genuinely contested, and a company can at least argue about what to warn of. Tretinoin's is not contested at all: irritate, burn, do not use in pregnancy. Three sentences, known to every prescriber, absent from a page aimed at women who may still be ovulating.
Publish the three strengths. Publish a real ingredient list, or stop calling three names one. And write the three sentences about retinisation, sunscreen and pregnancy that every other tretinoin seller in this register manages. Alloy has now demonstrated, across four pages, that it can disclose anything it chooses to — which makes the consistency of what it omits look less like an oversight each time.
Who this is for
- Someone who has decided they want prescription tretinoin, will ask for the strength in per cent, and knows what retinisation is before starting.
- Someone who wants a simple tretinoin-plus-niacinamide cream rather than a multi-active blend, at a genuinely fair price.
- Someone who values being able to check the maths — 30 grams, pea-sized, ninety nights — because this is the one Alloy page where that is possible.
- Someone already established on a retinoid who is switching supplier and knows their own tolerance.
- Someone who will wear daily sunscreen without being told, because this page will not tell them.
- You are pregnant, may become pregnant, or are breastfeeding. Perimenopause is not infertility, and this page will not raise it — ask before you order.
- You have never used a retinoid and want to know what the first six weeks will be like. Nothing here describes them.
- You need to know your concentration before committing. Three strengths, none named.
- You are already using another retinoid. Do not stack them.
- You have active eczema, rosacea or a compromised barrier.
Ask which of the three strengths you have been given, in per cent. And if there is any chance of pregnancy, ask about that too — perimenopause is not infertility, and this page says nothing.
This is an editorial assessment of published information about a prescription product. It is not a diagnosis, not a prescription and not a substitute for your own prescriber. Hydroquinone and tretinoin are drugs. Decisions about them belong with a clinician who has seen your skin.
Sources
- S-01Alloy — Tretinoin Face Cream Rx product page The $90 price for 30 grams, the pea-sized nightly dose and application sites, the three unnamed strengths, the three-item 'full list of ingredients', the twelve-week timeline, and the absence of pregnancy, breastfeeding, contraception, side-effect, irritation and sunscreen content. Read 28 July 2026.
- S-02Alloy — M4 Eye Cream Rx product page The same 'Full list of ingredients' phrasing delivering twenty items and three concentrations — the internal comparison used in Fig. 2.
- S-03Ro — Important Safety Information, tretinoin A competitor's tretinoin pregnancy statement, which distinguishes oral tretinoin's established risk from topical tretinoin's inconclusive evidence — the proportionate version of the warning this page omits entirely.
- S-04Musely — The Anti-Aging Cream The published 0.025% / 0.05% / 0.1% titration ladder used as the comparison for three strengths named versus three strengths withheld.
- S-05NASEM — The Clinical Utility of Compounded Bioidentical Hormone Therapy Background on compounded preparations and the absence of premarket review, relevant to the compounded status this page does state plainly.