The short answer on How Do Frownies Work is below, and the honest version is that it depends on two or three things rather than one. Shoes and outerwear are the two things colleagues actually notice. Office dressing is mostly about fabric quality, because the silhouettes are conservative by definition. Introduce one active at a time, otherwise you cannot tell what worked. The groups below run from the decision that matters most to the ones you make afterwards.

What decides this is formula, texture and where it sits in your routine. Everything else is preference. Two from the first group show the range: Oneskin's OS-01 BODY MOISTURIZER at $105, and INNBEAUTY PROJECT's Green Machine Serum at $48. The first is the considered buy; the second is the one to start with. Texture matters more than the ingredient list for whether you will actually use it. Give anything new four weeks before you judge it. A higher price mostly buys materials and finishing, and occasionally it buys nothing at all.

Consistency beats the number of steps. Thinnest texture first, richest last. From the second group, RoC Skincare's Hydration+ Serum Stick ($33) is the one that earns its place, because it works in more than one context without being restyled. The third group is smaller and deliberately narrower, skincare, for the decisions you make after the main one. None of this needs the whole group. One piece from each is usually enough.

There are 20 skincare here from 19 brands, $13 to $235, all in stock when this was written. We would not buy all of them, and neither should you. elfcosmetics.com's Bright + Brew-tiful Eye Cream at $13 is the low-risk way in, and chantecaille.com's Bio Lifting Eye Cream at $235 only makes sense if this is a category you already use constantly. Read as a set, they get you close to How Do Frownies Work without any single purchase being compulsory. Nothing here is included because it is famous, and price is not used as a proxy for quality anywhere on this page. If you take one thing away: pay for the thing that touches your body and economise on the thing that sits on top of it.