The articles argue. The desks calculate.
Use a desk when you are past the interesting-reading stage and have an actual decision sitting in front of you: makeup that will not behave, a skincare routine that has become a small administrative state, or a treatment menu that says everything except the thing you need to know before paying the deposit.
They are free, they need no account, and the shared Decision Record stays local to your browser unless you choose to carry or export it.
Makeup
For the moment your makeup looks like makeup in exactly the way you did not mean.
The Makeup desk works with formula type, finish, layering, color, climate, time, technique and wear. It is deliberately more interested in what is happening on your face than in which brand has the prettiest launch campaign.
It can help separate a product problem from an order problem, a skin-prep problem, a coverage problem, or the very common problem of asking one formula to do six incompatible jobs before 8 a.m. Wear results can return to the same Decision History, because the mirror at hour six gets a vote too.
Skincare
For the shelf that has become a committee and somehow still has no clear job description.
Skincare starts with what the routine is supposed to accomplish, what your skin is tolerating, what is redundant, what the budget can actually support, and what deserves enough time to be judged fairly.
It is useful when a routine needs simplifying, when an expensive active is auditioning for a job already covered by another bottle, or when you need a reassessment date instead of the internet’s favorite instruction to simply keep going forever. Reassessments return to the Decision Record so a product does not get graded only on the day you bought it.
Spa
For figuring out what a spa or clinic has not told you before the room gets expensive.
Spa does not rank providers and it does not decide whether a treatment is right for you. It reads disclosure: what service is actually named, what product or device is identified, who performs it, what the marketing sentence claims, what is still unknown, and which questions are worth saying out loud in the consultation.
That distinction matters. A gorgeous lobby can be gorgeous. It cannot answer who owns an after-hours complication. A famous machine can be impressive hardware. It is still not a treatment plan until the settings, indication, operator and real recovery are attached.
When the problem changes departments
Sometimes foundation trouble turns out to be a barrier problem. Sometimes the skincare goal has become a procedure question. Sometimes a treatment claim needs a better evidence file before anything else happens.
The Decision Record is there for that handoff. It can carry the concern, constraints, evidence and prior decisions into the next specialist without pretending the next desk has already reached a conclusion. Nothing moves unless you choose to move it.
You do not need to use all three. Use the one that owns the problem you actually have. Beauty already has enough routines trying to turn themselves into full-time jobs.