Are Makeup Expiry Dates a Myth?

If you look anywhere for advice on when to toss your makeup products, the only consistent piece of information is this: throw out mascara after three months. This makes sense – anything that’s going to specifically touch your eyeball should probably be as bacteria-free as possible and mascaras tend to dry out pretty quickly.

But what about everything else?

I’ve seen guidelines that range anywhere from 2-5 years for powders, 6 months to 2 years for cream shadows, lipsticks and blushes, 1-5 years for eyeliners and 2 to 10 for nail polishes. Typically there is always at least one comment from someone who is still using an eyeshadow pallet from 15 years ago and swears the shadows are still clean and work well. So what is the truth?

Well, my Mother is friends with a woman who manages a high-end department store in the city. She worked her way up from a makeup counter, so she knows cosmetics. And her opinion is that, apart from mascara, it’s all BS.

If your product actively smells, or if your powders aren’t giving any payoff, then toss them. Otherwise, “expiration dates” are merely a way to keep you rotating your collection faster than you could actually get through it.

This is one area where you do see the quality in higher-end products paying off. My Dior 5-eyeshadow pallet from five years ago still blends beautifully, while a drug store pallet I bought a couple of years ago has already gotten a little hard and chalky.

So it depends. But in the end, when it comes to expiration dates (apart from mascara – seriously, toss it after three months), let your eyes and nose be your guides.

What's your take? Are makeup expiry dates factor or fiction? Do you still have some lipstick rattling around from 1998?

GH Review: Physicians Formula Mineral Blush in Rosy Glow

 

      While I've certainly owned more expensive blushes, I don't think I've ever liked one as much as I love the Physician's Formula mineral blush in "Rosy Glow." For a long time, my all-time favorite was Lancome's Shimmer Pink Pool which retails for about $40, though it did last me about four years. It was a beautiful bright pink color shot with silver glitter and I loved it. But glittery blushes get harder to wear once you've left school, even though I could probably justify the price given the longevity of the product.

But on a whim, I picked up the entire "Fair" mineral collection from Physician's Formula, which included a powder foundation, blush and mineral veil. The blush was the stand-out of the three.

GH Review: MAC's Briar Rose Beauty Powder

Released as part of the MAC Venemous Villains collection from Fall/Winter 2010, MAC's Briar Rose beauty powder is a beautiful cool-toned blush that's perfect for fair skin.

The End of Goo Hoarding: Week 2

We're already at Week 2, which means I need new goo to review.

Given that my products span just about every beauty category, I'm kind of pulling things at random that I can be sure I'll use daily so that I can fairly and accurate review them all. So, in light of that, I've made myself a complete "face" for this week and I'll see how I like it by next Monday.

The End of Goo Hoarding: Week 1 Results

 About a week ago, I began the harrowing project of documenting and reviewing my massive collection of goo to decide what stays and what goes. Without further ado, here are the results of the first batch:

The End of Goo Hoarding

 In a recent video, Jenna Marbles discussed a little-talked about but terrible female condition known as "goo hoarding" -- the conscious collecting and storing of endless half-empty shampoo, conditioner and/or body wash bottles that litter your bathroom and fistfulls of lip, eye, hair and skin products that inhabit your bag, bedside table and various drawers.

We goo-hoard, according to Jenna, because we're always lured away from our current product in hopes that the next one will be better; that there's something about this particular brown eyeshadow that's unlike every other brown eyeshadow you own.

But where the shame cycle really begins is when you promise yourself that you won't buy another lip gloss/lip stick/whatever until you've finished what you have, and yet you can't drag yourself away from a makeup section without finding yet another new product.

I found Jenna's confession uncomfortably familiar, so my plan -- over the next few weeks and months -- is to document my goo-hoarding and make hard decisions on what needs to see the garbage, what deserves a second chance, and what gets Holy Grail status among my make-up, hair and body products.
What I plan to do is spend a week using five items consistently. At the end of that week, I can decide what stays and what goes.
This week, those five items are: