The simplest version of the question

People overcomplicate this subject. Here is its simplest version.

The question everyone asks

“What should I use?”

It’s a question with no answer, and not because the subject is mysterious. Because it’s missing one piece of information: who the answer is for.

It’s like asking what size to buy without saying who it’s for. You can give the most common size, which will roughly fit a third of people.

The question worth asking

“Does my face produce too much, or does it lose too much?”

There. The whole question lives in that.

A face that produces needs to be unburdened. A face that loses needs to be given back to. These are two opposite directions, and almost every skincare mistake comes from choosing the wrong one.

Why it’s hard to tell

Because the two look alike.

A face that produces shines. A face that has been stripped of too much also shines — it compensates. The two look exactly the same at noon, and they need the opposite of each other.

A thrifty face feels tight. A face that has been scrubbed raw feels tight too. Same thing.

This is precisely why you can’t settle it by looking at yourself, no matter how closely you look. The sign is the same; the cause is not.

What won’t settle it

Skin type. It describes the appearance, not the cause. It’s exactly the word that stops you from asking the right question.

Trial and error. You can try one direction and see. But the answer takes months, it’s faint, and it gets tangled up with the season, with sleep, with everything else. You can try for fifteen years and never conclude.

A friend’s advice. She’s telling you what her face was asking for.

What will settle it

A piece of information that comes neither from observation nor from trial: something prior to all of that.

Each person follows a constant logic — the way their body produces, holds, spends. It doesn’t change with the seasons or with age. It explains why your face has always done what it does, and not just this year.

This is what we call the element that is yours, and it can be read from the very beginning.

What this changes

Everything, and nothing complicated.

You’ll know whether you need to give back or to take. You’ll know why some piece of advice, excellent in itself, was never meant for you. And your routine will shrink, because half of what it contained was answering the wrong question.

It’s a question with two possible answers. You just need to know which one is yours.