Geologie vs Tiege Hanley vs Lumin: I Tested Them All (2025)

I’ve been picking up Jiu Jitsu and after an intense roll with a fellow white belt, he asked, how old are you?

Nevermind that it was kind of a weird question. But when I told him I was 32, he was surprised.

Oh man, I thought you were younger.

I looked this man straight in the eyes and said: “face lotion, baby.”

We proceeded to continue rolling and he got me in a choke hold and cut off the circulation to my head. Awesome.

So what’s my secret to such supple, youthful skin? The kind that makes enemy combatants stop and wonder, wow, how does he look so good?

Face lotion, baby.

I’ve tried probably 10 brands at this point, and three of my favorites have been Geologie, Tiege Hanley, and Lumin.

And in this review, I’m going to cover each of their pros and cons, plus tell you which I still use and why.

Geologie vs Tiege Hanley vs Lumin: Which is the Best Men’s Skincare Routine?

Men’s skincare has exploded in popularity over the last five years. Many brands have emerged, but there are a few that continue to endure.

Of the 10 brands I’ve personally tried, Geologie, Tiege Hanley, and Lumin have been my favorites.

Geologie

Geologie focuses on ingredient quality and effectiveness. But their price is definitely higher than both Tiege and Lumin (by about double).

That said, Geologie offers trial sets that allow you to get a sense for how their products work before you go ham and get a full routine.

Geologie is all about personalization. After taking their skincare needs quiz, they’re able to determine a routine that’ll impact the health of your skin the most.

The brand has five different routines based on skin-type: Sensitive, Acne, Redness Relief, Oil Control, and Anti-Aging.

You don’t need to worry if you think you might fall into multiple categories—when you take their diagnostic quiz, they ask several detailed questions that will land you in the right spot.

The big difference between Geologie and both Tiege Hanley and Lumin is their ingredients.

Their focus on using scientifically proven products like retinol, hyaluronic acid, and salicylic acid will produce results quickly.

I noticed that there’s a bit of a “take-off” period with Geologie. When I switched to their routine, I had a lot of peeling around the bridge of my nose. I was concerned for a little, but trusted the process and it helped the redness I was experiencing in that area tremendously.

Yes, doing a salicylic acid and retinol combo might be a be intense if you have sensitive skin, but it seriously works. I don’t want to say that Geologie’s ingredients are intense—because even folks with sensitive skin can use them with great effect—but they’re more rigorous in terms of actual effectiveness.

Geologie is the brand I still use today.

Tiege Hanley

Tiege Hanley was my go-to for a long time. I found their face wash and moisturizer combo to work well for several months. And I like the low prices.

Tiege is an excellent budget-friendly brand, and I recommend them if you’ve never tried skincare before and you’re looking to dabble a bit to test the waters.

If you’ve never tried skincare, Teige Hanley will get you positive results.

Tiege doesn’t offer any trial kits, and they don’t really do customization. However, their packages are inexpensive enough to try out without breaking the bank.

Their main system features a face wash, an exfoliating scrub, and their AM and PM moisturizers.

I love that Tiege’s AM moisturizer has 20 SPF in its formulation: I never put on sunscreen even though I know I should, so having it as part of the daily routine helped keep my forehead wrinkles from deepening.

For the price, Tiege’s ingredients are great—they offer excellent value for money.

Lumin

Lumin is all about the looks. If I wanted a girl to be impressed (and even slightly jealous) after looking at the skincare routine bottles in my bathroom, I would pick Lumin.

When I used Lumin, I found their routine effective—the exfoliating scrub was probably the most effective I’ve ever used, and it wasn’t so harsh.

Not all exfoliants are all that great—those that are too gritty actually do more harm than good because they can just rough up your skin. But Lumin’s is almost like clay in how fine it is, so there’s nothing rough enough to tear your skin.

Lumin’s price is a bit higher than Tiege Hanley, though it’s still inexpensive compared to Geologie.

But Lumin does depend on some “hype” ingredients that aren’t really effective.

Their main face wash is a charcoal infused solution. While charcoal is regularly touted as a deep-cleaning ingredient, the amount that’s in skincare products, and the chemical changes it undergoes when suspended in a liquid make it ineffective. In short, charcoal in skincare products doesn’t really do anything.

Despite the addition of some ingredients that are really designed for better marketing than skincare, I found Lumin to still be effective.

Ultimately, I still choose Geologie over Lumin. But Lumin is also in my top-three for skincare, so it’s not like I don’t enjoy them.

Men’s Skincare Features Face to Face

Personalization

Geologie wins the personalization game, offering five different formulations to help with sensitive skin, acne, red splotches, oily skin, and aging. So no matter what you’re struggling with, Geologie has a system that’ll help you for sure.

Tiege Hanley has the least amount of customization and personalization. They do offer a few “systems” which are effectively just all of their key products bundled together, as well as one featuring salicylic acid for those who struggle with acne, but that’s about it.

I found that Tiege Hanley is effective for folks with sensitive skin, and their products will help improve your overall complexion, but Geologie has specific formulations that will help specific needs faster.

Lumin has a degree of personalization—they offer three different formulations for dry skin, combination skin, and oily skin.

Those three categories are a bit broad and don’t speak to all the issues guys face with their skin, but it’s still better than nothing.

Overall, if you have a specific worry for your skin (mine is wrinkles and bags under my eyes), Geologie is much more likely to have something specifically formulated to help you.

That said, both Tiege and Lumin are good products overall, but have less specific ingredients for specific problems.

Ingredients

Geologie is the most rigorous with their ingredients, and they’re the only brand here that uses retinol in their night cream.

In my experience, I had the most dramatic changes in my skin after switching to Geologie. At first, I had a lot of peeling around the bridge of my nose and on my cheeks under my eyes.

I was actually not entirely sure I’d made the right move switching to Geologie. But as I kept using them, I realized that this peeling was caused by the retinol in the Geologie nighttime moisturizer.

Retinol increases cell production and encourages old skin to slough, hence the peeling. After a few days of using the night cream, I found that my complexion in those problem areas had evened-out significantly.

So that led me to feeling that Geologie’s formulations were the most intense. And I don’t mean that in a way where folks with sensitive skin should be concerned—it’s not that Geologie’s ingredients are harsh. It’s more that they’re effective, and they’re effective fast. So you’ll likely start noticing changes within a few uses.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m a bit disappointed with some of the “marketing-focused” ingredients in Lumin. But I’m still happy with their performance (when I was using them).

And Tiege Hanley also uses excellent ingredients that will help improve your complexion, but they’re missing some heavy hitters that really help dramatically improve your skin health quickly.

Overall, Geologie has the best ingredients of the bunch, and while you’ll be paying a premium for that, the results are faster and more complete.

Effectiveness

If it’s not already clear, I find Geologie to be the most effective skin care of these three brands.

Tiege Hanley was my introduction to skin care and I definitely had an improvement in my overall complexion. I also love that they use SPF in their daily face moisturizer as that helped a lot in slowing my wrinkles.

From Tiege, I tried several other brands until I landed on Lumin. Lumin was also effective for me, and I especially like their moisturizer and exfoliator.

In fact, I might re-up on their exfoliator now even though I’m a Geologie man. Its clay-like texture has the power of an abrasive exfoliant for removing lots of dead skin cells, but it’s not so textured that you’re doing more damage than good for your skin.

But the quality of ingredients speak for themselves after a few weeks of use, and once I tried Geologie, I haven’t gone elsewhere for my skincare.

Geologie vs Tiege Hanley vs Lumin: Which is Best for You?

Geologie is my favorite skin care brand for men for a few different reasons.

They’re the most rigorous with their ingredient selection, and I also like how comprehensive they are in determining what your greatest skin care need is.

The level of customization they offer ensures you’re able to find something that solves your biggest skin care problem, whether that’s wrinkles, eye bags, red splotchy skin, dryness, oiliness, or acne.

I think Tiege Hanley is an awesome brand to choose if you’re getting your first skin care regime and you want to keep things budget-friendly. Their system is simple and it’ll help improve your overall complexion.

Lumin is a good brand, too—their aesthetics are on point, which is great if you’re dating and you want to impress a girl with your matching bathroom products (it’s all about the details, boys).

But between Tiege and Geologie, Lumin falls short for me. While I think the ingredients are on par with Tiege, Tiege is less expensive, so that tips the scales in their favor for me.

So if you’re looking to start a basic skin care routine and you don’t want to spend a lot, get Tiege Hanley.

And if you want the best of the best and don’t mind investing in that handsome mug of your, get Geologie.

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