Product Expiration Dates

After my trip to Sephora, my mind slowly drifted to all of the skin care and make up products that I already have. I have so many perfumes, moisturizers, lip glosses, lotions, etc. that from the outside looking in, an outsider would think that I probably don't need to purchase any additional items. And if I were really being honest, I probably don't need to purchase any skin related products for the rest of this year. 

Some people might think this is borderline hoarding of some type but I honestly need these things!

So, since I do have all of these items, I decided to look up what expiration dates are of products. And that's when things got a little scary. Here's what I found out:

General period after opening is:
Perfumes, perfume – up to 3 years;
Powders (including blush, eyeshadows powdery texture) – 1 to 3 years;
Foundation in a jar or a cream powder – 1 to 3 years;
Liquid tone means (in tubes or jars with dispenser) – 1 year;
Nail polish – 1 year;
Sun cosmetics – 1 year (but no more than one season);
Lipstick, lip gloss – 1 year;
Pencil (Eye, Lip) – about 1 year;
Skin care products (hydrating cosmetics, wrinkle, eye contour) in a sealed packet with the pump – about a year, in a jar – from 6 to 10 months;
Solid eyeliner and eyebrow pencil – from 6 to 8 months;
Bronzing – 6 months;
Mascara – 3-6 months;
Liquid eyeliner – from 3 to 4 months;
Natural/Organic products – up to 6 months.

Yikes!

I decided to look up the expiration of a few items, and let’s just say that I will need to throw some items away. Like yesterday. And there are some items that will be expiring within the next six months.

I also learned that some items have a PAO (period after opening) date. I had always seen a symbol like a jar printed on some products, with an ‘18M’ printed inside the symbol. This means the product is good for 18 months after it has been opened. But of course if the product expiration date occurs first, then that might prevail. To be honest, trying to decipher some of this stuff started to give me a headache (and I’m sure you might be getting one too right about now). So here’s a link to the site that I used to get information AND it has a product calculator on it: http://checkcosmetic.net/

I have a feeling that I won’t be the only person throwing away some items…