First visit · 1 of 3

Pick one job

Start with the single change you are asking the routine to make. Secondary concerns can stay visible without becoming simultaneous experiments.

Name the job →
Decision Record
Vanity or Vice
Skincare Intelligence

Vanity or Vice · Skincare Intelligence

What are you
actually doing?

A routine is a sequence over time — not a shopping list. Answer a few questions and leave with a morning and evening order, and the reasoning behind it.

Build my routine→Open the desk
  • No account · stays in this browser
  • Every rating shows its source
  • Independent · not a store

Photograph settling.

Macro of real skin under directional examination light — pores, a raised spot, and the shine along one cheek

Fast Skin Brief

Four answers is enough
to start working.

Planning questions, not a diagnosis. The brief fills in as you answer, and every remaining answer sharpens it.

0 of 6 brief questions answered. 4 is enough to start.

01 / 06

What are we trying to accomplish?

One primary job. Secondary concerns wait their turn.

Four answers is enough to open the brief. Every field stays editable on the desk.

Four common states

You do not need to know
which module you need.

01

I need a routine

Build from goal, tolerance, context and budget.

Begin →02

I already own too much

Review the cabinet before buying anything.

Begin →03

What I am doing is not working

Change one thing, in the right order — and leave the rest alone.

Begin →04

I am considering professional treatment

Separate home care from clinic cash and unresolved questions.

Begin →

Smart paths

Start with the thing
you are actually trying to change.

Each path seeds the workflow. Every field stays yours. Nothing is locked.

Guided learning paths

Learn it in an order
that makes sense.

5 short tracks through the glossary, the claim decoder, the tone guides and the desk itself. Tick a step when you have read it; the path remembers where you are.

Beginner0/4

Assumes nothing. The words, one job, the order of a routine.

Intermediate0/12

Assumes you have a routine and want to run it, buy for it, and adapt it.

Advanced0/5

Assumes the routine runs and the question is now whether it worked.

  • First step read
  • Foundations complete
  • One intermediate track complete
  • Judging your own results

Ticks stay in this browser. Nothing is sent anywhere, and no step is locked.

Suggested for you

Foundations

Nothing read yet and no routine on the desk — start from the floor.

Foundations

0 of 4 done · about 23 min · 0/3 checks right

You have never had a routine, or you want to start over from the floor.

  1. Learn the six words the desk uses

    Primary job, spine, hold, stepping up, floor, ceiling — everything later assumes these.

    Open the glossary →6 minNext up

    Check yourself

    "Primary job" in the desk means:

  2. Pick one job for your skin

    A routine that treats four concerns at once is how most routines fail; the desk starts by choosing.

    Open the desk →4 min

    Check yourself

    You want less acne, fewer dark marks and less oil. The desk asks for one job. Why?

  3. See the morning and evening order

    Sequence is architecture. Once the job is set, the spine is mostly decided for you.

    Open the desk →8 min

  4. Read how sunscreen is actually applied

    The one step with the strongest evidence is also the one most often underused.

    American Academy of Dermatology5 min

    Check yourself

    Most people apply roughly half the sunscreen the SPF number was tested at. The practical fix is:

Next up: Learn the six words the desk uses

How it works · one session

The reasoning, made readable.

  1. 01 · Understand

    What the routine is for, in one page.

  2. 02 · Build

    The morning and evening order, what can run together, what you own, what it costs.

  3. 03 · Track

    When to judge it, what changed, and what to change first if it is not working.

  4. 04 · Get help

    What a claim really says, two versions side by side, and a visit summary.

Three principles

Time. Sequence. Cost.

Time
Skincare unfolds over weeks. The desk will not pretend tomorrow is a new routine.
Sequence
AM and PM are architecture. Empty slots are honest. Intentional omissions are allowed.
Cost
Floors before prestige. Expensive is never automatically better.

Example output

A completed Skin Brief.

Pigment with SPF discipline — a real session, not a mood board. Load it, then overwrite it.

Pigment. Verify. Hold the spine for ~56 days before a secondary goal.

Answer

Pigment

Everything else on this desk is ordered against one job. Antioxidant AM + nightly path + non-negotiable SPF. Secondary concerns are not ignored — they are scheduled after this one has had a fair window.

Current state
VerifyRequires label, source, or professional confirmation.

Morning

  1. 01cleanser
  2. 02vitamin c
  3. 03moisturizer
  4. 04spf

Evening

  1. 01cleanser
  2. 02retinoid or aha
  3. 03moisturizer
Next step
Hold the spine for ~56 days before a secondary goal.

Demos that behave like stories

Watch the answer change when the facts do.

Photograph settling.

Open cream jar and glass dropper on a paper record

Evidence without the sales counter

Confidence is labeled. Uncertainty stays.

A match is not evidence. Name-match confidence says we recognised a word. The scale below says how well the claim itself is supported.

  • Established

    Repeated human studies measuring the thing you actually care about — SPF testing, or the well-studied ways retinoids are used.

  • Supported

    There is human data, but it is small, tied to one particular base, or borrowed from a close relative of this ingredient.

  • Mixed

    Early clinical work, mixed results, or a match on the product name alone. Useful as a hunch, not a verdict.

  • Mechanistic only

    We can describe how it might work. That is not the same as it working on a face over 12 weeks.

  • Thin

    A word that sells a feeling. It does not bind a dose, a test, or a timeline.

  • No adequate evidence

    The word is claiming more than the public evidence supports. Rather than guess, we name what is missing.

Open claim literacy →

Includes 31 decoded terms — medical grade, clinically proven, clean, peptide, exosome, SPF-adjacent language, and more.

Every skin tone

Advice that applies
to your skin.

Dark marks that last for months, inflammation that looks purple rather than red, raised scars, razor bumps, sunscreen that leaves a cast. Sourced guides to what changes across skin tones — and a desk that personalises from how your skin responds, never from race.

All guides for every skin tone →

New here?

Every word the desk uses, in plain English.

Primary job, routine spine, hold, stepping up, floor and ceiling — and how the desk moves on a phone.

Open the glossary →

Private by design

This browser. No account. No tracking.

Save stays on this device. Copy, print, or export when you want a record. The only measurement is an anonymous page count, without cookies, that never includes your answers. Educational only — not medical advice, not a store, not a clinic ranking. Completeness is not clearance.

Near-black ground, following the device