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Cosmetics Shelf-Life: How Long Should We Keep Our Makeup?

Argh! I’m guilty of this! Very very much guilty! That if I really really like this makeup of mine, its so hard to throw away! Even if its “expired”. Mascaras for example, Their shelf life usually is 3 months, but even after 6 months and it is still okay, I still use it!

Maybe this will serve as our guide on how long we should keep our cosmetics, but of course sometimes we disobey *wink wink*

According to the article from http://www.ivillage.co.uk/beauty/makeup/tips/articles/0,,548145_183872-1,00.html

  • Oil-Free Foundation: 1 year
  • Cream or Compact Foundation: 18 months
  • Concealer: 12-18 months
  • Powder: 2 years
  • Blush and Bronzer: 2 years
  • Cream Blush: 12-18 months
  • Powder Eye shadow: 2 years
  • Cream Eye shadow: 12-18 months
  • Eyeliner: 2 years
  • Liquid eyeliner: 3-6 months
  • Mascara: 3 months
  • Lipstick: 2 years
  • Lip liner: 2 years
  • Lip gloss: 18-24 months
  • Nail Color: According to digitaltraincase.blogspot.com, FOREVER! 🙂
  • We should consider our BB creams as liquid foundation so we should throw it away after a year. I remember I had stored my skinfood gingko green bb cream for more than a year, and I was about to try to use it again and *poof* it smells all funky! Down the bin it goes!

    7 Comments

    • Life of Temptation

      😛 I'm very bad with this lol.. I still have some mascara that is more than 3 moonths old..Some of them I barely use..so I opened it ONCE to try and then like few months later..I'll go back to it.. hahah:D I don't like throwing them out hahah:P Lovely blog:D
      Cindy xox

    • Chelle

      shelf life are usually used for selling tactics too…

      most magazines impose shorter shelf life in order to sell more make up since make up companies are their advertising clients…

      so I don't follow the guideline, what I do is I use my common sense, when the product is still good, it doesn't look weird, doesn't smell funky, I still use it.

      But when it starts to smell bad, the consistency changed, the color changed, then I toss it out.

    • Gaby

      3 months is too short for a mascara in my opinion, unless it becomes thick or something. Anyway, I don't follow any guidelines when it comes to this. I've used a face cream that was expired and the texture had even changed… but it was still effective and my skin bever broke out!

      As for nail color, you may try to keep them forever, but they will not be good forever…

    • admnkikaysikat

      Thanks for all your comments! Yeah I agree, there are certain rules for cosmetics storage but the best judge is still ourselves.

      I still use my mascaras up to 6 months and sometimes my powder blushes for more than a couple of years -_- because it takes so long to hit the pan and I find it wasteful to just throw it away.

    • Khymm

      storing nail polishes forever LOL! I dont usually follow the expiration dates pero when the makeup starts to smell weird, then its time to toss it in the bin hehe

    • Shabby

      It's true that it's wasteful to throw them away when you haven't reached the pan. I must have thrown only 2 makeup products in my life. *lol* And they were in sample sizes. :3 Like the others, I would only throw away something that looks and smells funky especially if they're a face/skin care product.

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