Does makeup expire?

Mascara and liquid eyeliner: about three months after opening. Shortest life of anything, highest risk, and the wand carries bacteria back into the tube every single use. Replace on a schedule rather than when it runs out. If it smells different, has gone stringy or clumps on a wand you just wiped, it is already past it.

Liquid and serum foundation, liquid concealer: six to twelve months. Pumps last longer than open-neck bottles and droppers, because less air and no fingers get in. Separation that will not remix, a change in smell, or a color that has gone darker or more orange are all signs of oxidation.

Cream products — cream foundation, cream blush, cream shadow, correctors in pots: about twelve months. Anything you put a finger into is on the shorter end. A stick or twist-up format lasts longer than a pot for exactly that reason.

Pressed powders, powder foundation, powder eyeshadow and blush: around two years. Low water content means little for bacteria to grow in. The thing that ages them is a hard, shiny film on the surface from skin oils on a brush — scrape that off and the product underneath is usually fine.

Pencils, brow pencils and gel liner pots: one to two years for pencils, around twelve months for a pot. A pencil can be sharpened or twisted to a fresh surface, which is why it lasts; a pot cannot.

Lipstick and lip products: one to two years. They go waxy, change smell and stop applying smoothly rather than becoming unsafe.

Sponges and brushes: a sponge every three months with weekly washing, brushes for years with monthly washing. A dirty sponge is the most contaminated object in most makeup bags and the one nobody thinks of as a product.

Anything with SPF: use the printed date, not the open-jar symbol. Sun filters lose effectiveness as they degrade, and a foundation with lapsed SPF is a foundation, not a sunscreen.

Smell it. This is the most reliable test there is. Rancid oils, a sour note, or a smell that is simply different from what you remember all mean the formula has changed.

Look for separation that will not remix. Shaking a liquid foundation should bring it back together. If it does not, the emulsion has broken.

Check the color against a shade you know. Oxidized foundation and concealer go darker and warmer. If it was a match and now goes orange on you an hour later, that is the product, not your skin.

Feel the texture. Mascara gone stringy, a cream gone grainy, a pencil gone crumbly, a powder with a hard shiny film on top — all of them are telling you the same thing.

Watch for stinging or itching that was not there before. Any new irritation from a product you have used happily is a reason to stop using it, regardless of its age.

Write the month on the base with a marker when you open it. Thirty seconds, and it removes the guesswork entirely. This is the single most useful habit on the page.

The open-jar period-after-opening symbol and the convention of stating it in months are standard cosmetic labeling practice, and the figures we give per category are the widely published industry guidance for those categories rather than measurements of our own.

That contamination risk is highest in wet products with a re-inserted applicator, and that eye products carry a genuine infection risk because the eye is a mucous membrane, is well-established and is why mascara is treated separately on this page.

The sensory tests in the section above are practical heuristics, not laboratory methods. They detect a formula that has changed; they cannot detect bacterial contamination, which is invisible and odorless in its early stages. That is exactly why the mascara rule is a calendar rule rather than a judgment call.

Formats, applicator types and container details for the products named come from the manufacturer and retailer listings cited below. Every product was confirmed currently on sale before being featured.

Nothing here is medical advice. If you have eye pain, discharge, swelling or any change in vision, stop using every eye product and see a doctor — that is not a shelf-life question.

The open-jar symbol is often embossed rather than printed, which makes it close to invisible without good light and magnification. It is a genuine accessibility failure in cosmetic packaging and not something you are doing wrong.

Write the month on the base with a thick marker the day you open it. Large digits, your own handwriting, on the bottom where you will see it. This replaces the symbol entirely and takes thirty seconds.

Or use a phone camera as a magnifier. Photograph the packaging and zoom in on the picture — far easier than trying to focus on embossed plastic at reading distance.

A lighted magnifying mirror on a stand helps here too, not only for application. See best makeup mirror for low vision.

Set one recurring reminder for mascara. Every three months, one product, one decision. It is the only item on this page where the date genuinely matters, so it is the only one worth a reminder.

Clear the drawer sitting down, in daylight, with a bin beside you. Smell each product, check the texture, and be decisive. Anything you cannot identify or do not remember buying goes.