This Went Bad When?!

The good news is that most of the products in your beauty regimen when tell you how long their life is. The bad news is that most people probably don't realize that's what they're looking at on the bottle. So here's a minicourse so you know when to toss it and buy a new whatever-miracle-product-it-is-that-your-boyfriend-insists-doesn't-work.

If the picture looks like so:

You have 12 months from the date you opened it to use it up.

If the lid on the jar in the picture is closed, you have that long from when it was manufactured to use it. Good luck finding the manufacturing date, especially since many on packaging that is made of plastic are printed right into the packaging.

Will it hurt to use something that it past that time frame? Not necessarily, but many products will loose their effectiveness with continued exposure to oxygen. If you're worried about it, try buying things with a pump dispenser instead of products that come in a jar. It's pretty easy to tell if your moisturizer is still doing it's job, but it's not so easy to tell with sun screen until after a major burn occurs.

My best suggestion is to either use a sharpie to label each package with the date you opened it, or to possibly keep a list somewhere in your makeup bag/drawer/counter, preferably in a ziplock bag so if something spills or smudges everywhere it'll still be legible.

In general, mascaras and eyeliners should be replaced every 4-6 months to avoid eye infections; eye shadow should be switched out about every year. I know for a fact I don't follow these rules, especially with the colored makeups that I don't use all that often. Obviously if you have irritation or do end up with an infection it's definitely time to toss it, no matter how attached you are.

So now you know. You don't have to throw out everything exactly on the day it expires, especially if you have plenty left. It's just the company's way of giving you guidelines for when their products stop performing to their expectations.