One finds, in this century, that the vocabulary of skincare has become quite elaborate. There are “serums” and “essences” and a product called a “toner,” whose function I have, after considerable study, accepted on faith. My doctor in 1819 did not have any of these. He had a number of things that, in retrospect, I would not recommend.
What I can recommend, after several years of observing the living conduct their morning rituals in the rooms I happen to occupy, is that one chooses a cleanser before all else. The cleanser is the foundation upon which the rest of the edifice rests. A bad cleanser undoes the work of every serum that follows, and the serums, as I have mentioned, are quite elaborate.
I have, over the past four years and entirely for research, used the three below. I am, of course, still dead. But I am told my complexion has never looked better, and I see no reason to disbelieve this.
The first I would recommend to anyone whose skin has not yet declared itself a particular way — what the women of my time would have called “a constitution of moderate sensibility.” The second I would press into the hands of anyone whose skin is, as the contemporary phrase goes, “reactive.” The third is what I would purchase if I had no further information and simply wished to be done with the decision.