Expired makeup: How long it lasts and when to throw it away
Originally published February 2020. Fully rewritten and updated September 2026.
I was halfway through writing this article about expired makeup when I spotted what looked unmistakably like mold on an Hermès lipstick.
Mine.
I held it up to the window, turned it around, then set it down very carefully—as though showing it sufficient respect might somehow change what I was seeing.
It didn’t.
That lipstick sent me straight into a full audit of my dressing table. By the time I finished, roughly $3,000 worth of makeup had left the house.
The irony was hard to miss. I’ve spent 25 years working in beauty, including as Beauty Director at Marie Claire and on the mastheads of Vogue and Cosmopolitan.
Apparently, none of that stops you from looking at an expensive cream blush and thinking, Surely another few months can’t hurt. Expertise, it turns out, is no match for sunk-cost denial.
I am exceptionally good at finding reasons to keep expensive makeup.
Most of us are. Who hasn’t looked at a half-full mascara after three months and thought, Really? Already? Or quietly suspected that at least some expiration advice exists to persuade us to replace perfectly good products?
And when something is expensive enough to make throwing it away sting, common sense becomes remarkably negotiable.
But yes, makeup expires.
Just not according to one universal clock.
An eyeshadow palette doesn’t turn poisonous at midnight on its second birthday. Expiration is really about risk creeping upward as formula, packaging, storage, hygiene and time begin working against you.
That means some products earn considerably more benefit of the doubt than others. I’ll happily hear the defense case for an elderly powder palette. I will not be representing a six-month-old mascara.
So this isn’t a guide to throwing away half your dressing table because a calendar says so.
It’s about what actually happens as makeup ages, what those dates and tiny open-jar symbols really mean, which products deserve almost no benefit of the doubt, what rancid lipstick actually smells like—and when I don’t want to waste it stops being a sensible reason to keep something.
As I discovered, 37 products in my own collection had already crossed that line.
Does makeup expire? The short answer
Yes. Makeup expires—even when it is unopened.
When makeup expires depends on the formula, packaging, storage and whether it has been opened. Mascara may last only a few months, while powder makeup, lipstick and nail polish generally last much longer.
If makeup with SPF has a printed expiration date, follow it—no exceptions. And anything with a meaningful change in smell, color, texture or packaging should be discarded, whatever the calendar says.
My own expired makeup audit: 241 products checked, 37 failed
At some point, writing about expired makeup while sitting beside an enormous beauty collection began to feel less like research and more like hypocrisy.
So I opened the drawers.
I audited 241 products, mostly lipsticks and powder palettes. I checked expiration dates and PAO symbols where they existed, looked at batch information when it was useful, then assessed smell, color, texture, packaging and performance.
Thirty-seven failed.
That’s 15.4%—more than one in seven.
And every single one belonged to the beauty journalist currently explaining to other people when to throw theirs away. Excellent.
The oldest was a MAC Ruby Woo from 2017. I’d love to say I’d forgotten it existed. Unfortunately, I remember exactly where I was standing when I bought it, which tells you something about both lipstick and my priorities.
My nose caught most expired makeup first
Twenty-two of those 37 products—nearly 60%—failed because of smell.
One was a Kilian Le Rouge Parfum lipstick that had developed a very definite old-crayon note even though it was still within its PAO.
There is something especially ironic about a deliberately perfumed lipstick from a fragrance house being the one my nose flagged first.
More importantly, it proved a point: deterioration does not always wait politely for the date printed on the packaging.
Two products had visible mold-like growth
The clearest failures were the Rouge Hermès Matte lipstick that started this story and a Patrick Ta Major Dimension III eyeshadow palette, both of which had visible mold-like growth.
Neither was some grubby relic excavated from the bottom of an old handbag. These were expensive, beautiful products I had deliberately kept because I liked them—and because they felt too lovely, too costly and too good to throw away.
Until they weren’t.
At that point, there was no but I’ve barely used it, no cost-per-wear calculation, no wistful recollection of how difficult it had been to find.
Just the uncomfortable realization that I had been giving expensive makeup far more benefit of the doubt than I would ever give a $6 mascara.
I did not culture or laboratory-test the growth, so ‘mold-like’ here describes its appearance rather than a confirmed microbial identification.
P.S. None of the products mentioned here reflect a failure on the part of the brands. The failure, unfortunately, was mine: I kept them too long and stored some less carefully than I should have.
Price is not a preservative
That may have been the most useful lesson of the entire exercise.
Luxury can buy exquisite packaging, sophisticated textures, unusual pigments and beautiful design. It cannot make makeup immortal.
And mold wasn’t even the most common problem I found.
Most aging makeup deteriorates far more quietly. Fragrance fades or turns. Lipstick begins to drag. Creams stiffen. Textures change. Colors shift a little. Performance becomes progressively more annoying.
Nothing necessarily announces, Throw me away immediately.
The product simply becomes less and less like the one you originally bought.
If I had waited for all 37 products to look like that Hermès lipstick before admitting defeat, most of them would still be sitting in my dressing table looking expensive and quietly deteriorating.
What does “expired makeup” actually mean?
“Expired” sounds wonderfully definitive. In makeup, it rarely is.
A product may be past its printed expiration date or beyond its period after opening (PAO). Its formula may have begun to change—smell, color, texture or performance. Or it may have picked up contamination along the way.
Those things do not always happen at the same time.
A lipstick can sail past its PAO looking pristine. A foundation can deteriorate early after one enthusiastic summer in a hot car. And contamination, inconveniently, does not always arrive wearing visible fuzz.
There is no single makeup shelf life that applies to every formula, which is why I don’t treat every category the same. Mascara gets very little grace. SPF gets none. Powders get context. Lipstick gets its label, plus an absolute veto from my nose.
Expiration dates, PAO symbols and batch codes
Before you consult one of those internet expiration charts that confidently assigns a death date to everything in your makeup bag, inspect the product itself.
Ordinary cosmetics sold in the US do not generally have to carry expiration dates, so you may not find one.
Makeup with SPF is different because sunscreen claims fall under over-the-counter drug rules. I’ll exercise judgment around an elderly powder. I will not negotiate with expired sun protection.
If there is no printed date, look for the tiny open-jar symbol marked 6M, 12M or 24M. That’s the PAO: the manufacturer’s recommended period of use once you open the product.
Then there’s the batch code—the tiny printed or etched string on a bottle, compact or tube. It may help identify when a product was manufactured, but it is not, by itself, an expiration date.
If the packaging gives you neither a date nor a PAO, the manufacturer may be able to tell you when it was made. Online batch-code checkers can provide clues too, but they are unofficial and not always accurate.
My hierarchy is simple: printed expiration date first, PAO second, category guidance if the packaging gives me nothing useful.
But the product still gets the final say.
A meaningful change can retire it early; it still looks fine is not a lifetime-extension program.
Does unopened makeup expire?
Yes. Unopened does not mean suspended in time.
Oils oxidize. Solvents evaporate. Emulsions destabilize. Fragrance fades. Pigments and textures can shift.
But there is no useful single shelf life for “makeup.”
A dry pressed powder and a wet tube of mascara have completely different formulas, packaging and contamination risks. Treating them as though they age identically makes very little sense.
Once you open it, contamination joins the party
A mascara wand touches your lashes, disappears back into a moist tube, emerges again and repeats the journey for months. Doe-foot concealers, liquid lipsticks and glosses operate on much the same commuter route.
Which is why I’ve barely used it is not always as reassuring as it sounds.
Ten pumps from a closed bottle are not the same as ten applications made with an applicator that repeatedly touches your skin and then returns to the formula.
Packaging matters. Pumps reduce contact. Jars invite fingers and brushes. Cushion puffs spend their lives shuttling between your face and the compact.
And the research is not particularly comforting.
A 2013 study in the International Journal of Cosmetic Science found that 70.5% of the 44 women surveyed owned at least one expired cosmetic. Among 40 mascaras tested, researchers detected Staphylococcus aureus in 79% and Pseudomonas aeruginosa in 13%.
A 2020 Aston University study in the Journal of Applied Microbiology found bacterial contamination in roughly 79% to 90% of the used lipsticks, glosses, eyeliners, mascaras and beauty blenders it tested.
That does not turn every elderly compact into a bacterial swamp.
It does mean it still looks fine is not a microbiology test.
How heat, humidity and sunlight affect makeup shelf life
Shelf-life guidance assumes reasonably sensible storage.
A lipstick abandoned in a hot car will often make its displeasure obvious. The smaller daily insults are easier to overlook.
Foundation parked on a sunny windowsill. Makeup living permanently in a steamy bathroom. A cap that never quite closes. Anything that spent August in the glove compartment has forfeited its right to demand the full PAO.
How to tell if makeup is expired
Your senses are useful—but mostly in one direction.
A strange smell, color shift or altered texture can tell you something is wrong. The absence of those signs tells you much less.
My no-second-opinion list
I throw makeup away immediately if I find:
- visible mold, fuzz or unexplained growth
- a rancid or noticeably changed smell
- swelling, significant leakage or packaging that no longer seals properly
- SPF past its expiration date
- an eye product used during an eye infection
- a lip product used during an active cold sore
- sudden burning, stinging or irritation from something I previously tolerated
At that point, cost per wear has officially left the meeting.
When the formula starts fighting back
Most makeup does not go bad with theatrical flair. It simply gets worse at its job.
Mascara dries and flakes. Foundation separates, darkens or starts sitting oddly on skin. Cream blush stiffens. Concealer goes grainy. Lipstick drags. Eyeshadow stops looking quite like the shade you remember buying.
Sometimes there is another explanation. But deterioration has yet to respond well to optimism. If I’m fighting a formula every morning, it has stopped being good value anyway.
Broken packaging can make makeup expire sooner
The container is part of the preservation system.
A cracked lid, broken pump or tube that no longer closes properly gives air, moisture and contamination access they were never supposed to have.
You’ll sometimes see advice to scrape the remaining product out or decant it into another container.
I don’t.
Unless something was designed to be refillable, transferring elderly makeup creates another opportunity for contamination. Saving the last few dollars of foundation is not worth turning my bathroom into a small, badly funded microbiology lab.
When your skin suddenly starts objecting
If a product I tolerated happily for months suddenly starts burning, itching or stinging, I take it out of circulation.
That does not prove age caused the reaction. Skin changes for all sorts of reasons. But an aging or contaminated product—and the brushes or sponges used with it—introduce variables I would rather eliminate than argue with.
And no, patch testing does not grant an elderly cosmetic parole. A patch test may help flag irritation or allergy. It cannot certify that a product is microbiologically safe.
What expired makeup smells like
This is where my perfumery training in Grasse becomes unexpectedly practical.
Many lipsticks contain fragrance partly to make the waxes and oils underneath smell more pleasant. So the first warning is not always a bad smell appearing. Sometimes it’s the good smell disappearing.
As fragrance fades and oils oxidize, the scent can shift toward old crayons, stale wax, cardboard or something faintly oily and paint-like. Castor oil, a common lipstick ingredient, can contribute to that stale, fatty note as it oxidizes.
It is rarely dramatically rotten. More often, you smell it, pause, then smell it again because something is simply… off.
After decades of smelling formulas at launches, in editorial beauty cupboards and across my own indefensible lipstick collection, I know that smell. The same applies to foundation, concealer and cream color: fragrance fades, or something once neutral starts smelling sour, stale or oily.
If you have a newer version of the same formula, compare the two. Fresh product is often the best reference.
There is no single smell of expired makeup. But if something that once smelled softly of vanilla now smells like a Crayola box found in an attic, I don’t need a laboratory report before I stop putting it on my face.
When does makeup expire? How long does each product usually last?
It depends on the product, which is why there is no universally correct makeup-expiration chart.
Manufacturer and dermatologist guidance varies—sometimes quite a lot—and your product’s own expiration date or PAO always outranks a generic timeline copied around the internet.
When the packaging tells me nothing useful, these are the working ranges I use, based on commonly cited manufacturer, regulatory and dermatology guidance.
Think of them as starting points, not guarantees.
Any meaningful change in smell, color, texture, performance or packaging overrides the calendar. So does anything that looks remotely like growth.
| Makeup type | Working range* |
|---|---|
| Mascara | About 3 months |
| Liquid & gel eyeliner | 3–6 months |
| Foundation, concealer & skin tint | 6–12 months |
| Cream blush, bronzer & highlighter | 6–12 months |
| Primer & setting spray | 6–12 months |
| Powder makeup | 1–2 years |
| Solid lipstick | 1–2 years |
| Liquid lipstick, gloss & lip oil | 6–12 months |
| Eye & lip pencils | 1–2 years |
| Nail polish | About 2 years after opening |
| Makeup with SPF | Follow the expiration date |
| *Use these only when there is no useful manufacturer expiration date or PAO. Your product’s own date or PAO takes priority, and any meaningful change in smell, color, texture, performance or packaging overrides the calendar. |
Mascara: About 3 months
If you remember only one timeline from this article, make it this one.
The FDA notes that manufacturers commonly recommend replacing mascara 2 to 4 months after purchase; the American Academy of Dermatology recommends about three months.
Replace it sooner if it dries out, smells different or starts flaking. Don’t add water or saliva to resurrect it, and swirl the wand rather than pumping.
That’s because the mascara wand repeatedly travels between the tube and your eye area, increasing the risk of irritation and infection.
Throwing away a half-full mascara is irritating.
Your eyes are considerably more expensive.
Liquid and gel eyeliner: 3-6 months
Liquid liner gets very little grace for the same reason mascara does: that applicator repeatedly travels between your eye area and the formula.
Without a PAO, 3 to 6 months is a sensible range.
Gel liner may last a little longer, but once it turns rubbery or tacky, pulls away from the sides of the pot or stops gliding properly, negotiations are over.
Foundation, concealer and skin tint: 6-12 months
For wet complexion products without manufacturer guidance, 6 to 12 months is a useful working range.
Packaging matters here.
A pump protects the remaining formula better than an open jar. Droppers create more opportunities for contamination if they touch skin. Cushion compacts are especially high-contact because the puff keeps bouncing between your face and the product.
Same category. Very different lives.
Cream blush, bronzer and highlighter: 6-12 months
Cream and semi-wet color products generally sit in the same 6 to 12-month range.
How you use them matters too.
A stick swiped onto clean skin has lived a very different life from a pot repeatedly entered with fingers or a used brush.
Primer and setting spray: 6-12 months
Follow the PAO if you have one. If you don’t, 6–12 months is a reasonable working range.
Setting spray also goes if the nozzle becomes dirty, clogged or unreliable. The packaging is part of the product, not merely something for the design department to enjoy.
Powder makeup: 1-2 years
Powders get more leeway because their lower water content makes them less hospitable to microbial growth.
Without a PAO, 1-2 years is the commonly used range for powder eyeshadow, blush, bronzer and highlighter.
More leeway does not mean immortality. Dirty brushes, moisture, skin oils and poor storage can still shorten the clock.
Consider my Patrick Ta palette Exhibit A.
Does lipstick expire?
Yes, though traditional bullet lipsticks generally outlast wand-applied lip products.
Without manufacturer guidance, 1 to 2 years is a useful working range for bullets. Liquid lipstick, gloss and lip oil sit closer to 6–12 months because the applicator repeatedly returns to the container.
And this is where your nose earns its keep.
A stale, waxy, cardboard-like or old-crayon smell is not “vintage.” It’s a retirement notice.
Eye and lip pencils: 1-2 years
Sharpening helps because it removes the exposed surface.
What it does not do is reset the age of the formula.
Without other guidance, 1 to 2 years is the usual working range.
A pale, chalky film may simply be wax bloom. Fuzzy or irregular growth is an entirely different conversation.
And clean the sharpener. It is astonishing how often that tiny detail gets treated as somebody else’s problem.
Does nail polish expire? About 2 years after opening
Yes, though not in the same way mascara does. Nail polish deteriorates over time. Brands including Essie and OPI have recommended using opened polish within roughly 24 months for best performance.
Smell is not especially useful here.
Texture is.
If the polish turns thick or stringy, refuses to remix properly after shaking or applies like treacle, it has probably reached the end of the road.
Makeup with SPF: Follow the expiration date
This is the category where I refuse to freestyle.
The sun-protection claim depends on the formula continuing to perform as tested. If it has an expiration date, follow it.
If it doesn’t, the FDA advises treating sunscreen as expired three years after purchase. Replace it sooner after excessive heat exposure or if the color, consistency or smell changes.
And if you have absolutely no idea when you bought it, I would replace it rather than gamble on UV protection. Mystery-age lipstick is one thing. Mystery-age sunscreen is another.
How to make makeup last longer without pretending it’s immortal
No storage trick turns a six-month PAO into 18 months.
The goal is much less ambitious: don’t accidentally shorten the life your makeup was designed to have.
Mark the day you open it
This is painfully obvious, which may explain why I failed to do it consistently for about 20 years.
Now, when I open something, I note the PAO and opening date—either on the product itself or in a photo of the carton—before throwing the carton away.
It saves an absurd amount of future guesswork, because I bought this fairly recently can apparently describe anything from eight months ago to the Obama administration.
Store makeup somewhere cool and dry
In other words, store it somewhere boring: .
Not on a bathroom windowsill. Not beside a radiator. Not in the car.
Your makeup does not need a view. It needs stable conditions.
Wash brushes, sponges and applicators regularly
Clean your makeup bag too. There is little point washing a brush beautifully, then dropping it straight back into a pouch that could qualify for archaeological funding.
Keep packaging clean and properly closed
Replace caps promptly, keep openings clean and don’t leave creams sitting uncapped while you finish the rest of your face.
Packaging is part of the preservation system, not merely something beautiful to line up on the dressing table.
And be cautious with very old, discontinued or resale makeup. However immaculate it looks, you usually have no idea whether it spent the past five years in a temperature-controlled cupboard or somebody’s glove compartment.
Don’t share eye and lip products
I’m particularly strict about mascara, eyeliner and lip products.
At makeup counters, use fresh disposable applicators. The FDA has specifically warned about contamination risks from shared testers.
That lipstick may look irresistible. A stranger’s microbes are not.
Buy makeup at the speed you actually use
This one is aimed directly at me.
Backups make sense for products you reliably finish.
Five unopened versions of a lipstick you wear twice a year are not a strategic reserve. They are makeup quietly aging in formation.
The best way to waste less makeup is not to become exceptionally talented at keeping elderly products alive. It is to buy roughly what you can actually use while it is still good.
Not glamorous. Extremely effective.
Expired makeup FAQs
A few questions about expired makeup come up again and again, usually followed by wildly elaborate internet advice. Most deserve a much simpler answer.
Can expired makeup cause acne or infection?
Yes, it can. Old or contaminated makeup may contribute to irritation, breakouts or infection, although age alone cannot prove that a specific product caused a specific problem.
I learned that after a run of forehead breakouts while using an elderly setting powder. My dermatologist told me to remove it from the equation, which permanently cured me of believing powders deserve diplomatic immunity.
If something you used happily for months suddenly makes your skin or eyes behave differently, stop using it and see what happens.
Can you sanitize expired makeup?
You can clean makeup.
You cannot make it young again.
Sharpening a pencil or cleaning the surface of a powder may reduce surface contamination. It cannot reverse oxidized oils, replace evaporated solvents or rebuild a formula that has begun breaking down.
Sanitizing is a hygiene tool, not Botox for lipstick.
Can I scrape off mold and keep the rest?
No. If you see suspicious growth, the whole product goes.
Scraping off the visible bit tells you nothing useful about what may be happening deeper in the formula or elsewhere inside the packaging.
Expensive, discontinued, limited-edition, signed by Gabrielle Chanel’s ghost—I don’t care. Visible growth ends the conversation.
Should makeup be refrigerated?
Usually, no. Most makeup is designed for room-temperature storage in a cool, dry place away from direct sunlight.
If the manufacturer specifically tells you to refrigerate a product, follow the instructions.
Otherwise, your lipstick does not need to live beside the Parmesan.
The only expired-makeup rule I really need now
After checking 241 products and throwing out 37 of them, my system has become considerably simpler.
Follow the expiration date or PAO when there is one. Be strict with SPF and frequently reopened eye products. Throw away anything with suspicious growth or a meaningful change in smell, color, texture, performance or packaging. Factor in heat, humidity and hygiene.
And never let but it was expensive enter the safety calculation.
That, apparently, was the rule I needed most.
The money disappeared the day I bought the makeup. Keeping it for another three years does not bring it back. Neither does the beautiful packaging, the limited-edition shade or the memory of finally tracking it down.
If I am standing at my dressing table holding an elderly mascara up to the light and constructing a closing argument for why it deserves another month, the case is already over.
So go find the oldest product in your makeup bag.
If your first instinct is to start explaining why it’s probably still fine, you may already have your answer.
Has this changed how you look at your makeup? And what is the one product you are now slightly afraid to check?
Anubha Charan is the founder of The Beauty Gypsy and a beauty journalist with more than 25 years in the industry — as the former Beauty Director at Marie Claire, where she worked with the magazine's Paris headquarters, Managing Editor at Vogue, and Beauty Editor at Cosmopolitan. She trained in perfumery in Grasse, France, and spent six years reporting on beauty from Paris.
Her work has also appeared in Travel + Leisure, WebMD, and Architectural Digest, and she is the co-author of Paris Bath & Beauty, a book on French beauty rituals published by Simon & Schuster.
The line “price is not a preservative” hit way too close to home! I’ve definitely been guilty of keeping an expensive lipstick past its prime just because of what it cost. Time for me to be brave and go audit my vanity. Thanks for the reality check!