Straight answers about personal care

About six for most adults: face cleanser, face moisturiser, sunscreen, body wash, body moisturiser and shampoo, plus conditioner if you have any length and a deodorant. Anything beyond that should solve a specific problem you can name. Personal care does four jobs — clean, moisturise, protect, manage hair — and every product in the aisle is a variation on one of them.

For cleansers, body wash, shampoo and basic moisturiser, the performance ceiling arrives early and extra money mostly buys packaging and fragrance. Where more money genuinely buys something is a texture you prefer enough to be consistent with, a fragrance-free version if you react, and a format that suits your skin. Consistency beats formulation at this level.

No. Toners originally existed to correct skin pH after harsh soap, and modern cleansers do not leave skin in that state. What is sold as toner now is usually a light hydrating layer. If you enjoy it, it is fine; if you skip it, nothing is missing.

Fragrance-free means no fragrance was added. Unscented means the product does not smell of anything, which is sometimes achieved by adding a masking fragrance to cover the smell of the other ingredients. If you react to products often, that difference matters — check the ingredient list for “fragrance” or “parfum” rather than trusting the front of the bottle.

It depends on your day rather than on a rule. If you spend meaningful time near windows or go outside at all, daily sunscreen is the highest-value habit in personal care. If you genuinely do not go out and do not sit by a window, the case is weaker. The bigger issue for most people is not whether they apply it but how much — most apply around a quarter of the amount it was tested with.

Six to twelve weeks of consistent use. Skin cell turnover takes roughly a month, so anything judged at two weeks is being judged on the weather and the lighting. The exception is irritation, which is immediate — stinging, burning or spreading redness is a reason to stop, not to persevere.

Look for the small open-jar symbol with a number like 12M — that is the months after opening, not after purchase. Regardless of the date, a changed colour, a separated texture, a different smell or a new stinging sensation all mean finished. Be strictest with sunscreen and anything used near the eyes.

You can, and for many people nothing happens. Body lotions are usually richer and more heavily fragranced, so on facial skin they are more likely to feel heavy or to irritate. It is a reasonable emergency measure and a poor permanent arrangement.

Usually not. Most eye creams are a gentle moisturiser in a smaller jar at a higher price per millilitre. If your face moisturiser does not irritate the skin around your eyes, you do not need a separate product. If it does, then a dedicated gentle one is worth buying.

Not reliably. Several of the most common fragrance sensitisers — limonene, linalool, citral, geraniol — occur naturally in essential oils. Whether something irritates you depends on the specific ingredient and the concentration, not on where it came from. “Clean” has no agreed definition, and neither does “hypoallergenic”.

The most common causes are product buildup, hard water, or washing frequency that does not match your scalp — in roughly that order. Hard water in particular changes how everything in the shower behaves, and no amount of switching shampoo fixes it. A clarifying or chelating shampoo used every few weeks usually does.

When something is persistent, painful, spreading or getting worse despite a simple routine; when there is any change in a mole or pigmented spot; when a reaction to a product is severe or does not settle within a day or two; or when you are cycling through products without a pattern. A single consultation frequently costs less than three months of experimental buying and is far more likely to work.