Spring, traditionally a time for a good deep clean but what about what is lurking in your bathroom cupboards, has your favourite face cream gone off? Is that cleanser you’ve had for years growing bacteria and nasties? Yes, you may be surprised to hear that your skincare expires, yep it will go off and when it does it needs to be binned. Once the expiration date has passed chances are bacteria and microbes have taken home in your product – yuck! Using gone off skincare can cause breakouts and skin reactions and remember everything you apply to your skin will make its way into your body, not to mention the product simply will not perform as it should. With more ‘active’ ingredients being used in skincare, Vitamin C for example is very unstable, it is important to understand how to look after your products after all you’re investing in them to look after your skin.
HOW DO I KNOW WHEN MY SKINCARE PRODUCTS WILL EXPIRE? Now before you go chucking out perfectly good skincare products have a look at the packaging there is a symbol, a small pot with an opened lid with a number followed by the letter M, for example 3M. This number is the number of months after opening that your product is good to use for. It can be good practice to jot down the date of opening, maybe use a pen like a sharpie to write on the bottle, or a small sticker, this way you will never be second guessing if your product is past its best or not.
