One of my ongoing goals for myself is to be mindful of expiration dates in effort to a) help keep the clutter under control and b) make sure I’m not buying more than I can use of things.

This week I’ve been taking a heavy hand to my health and beauty products to make sure that what I have on hand is fresh enough to be safe and worthy of using on myself. In the past I’ve been a bit of a hoarder and a junkie when it comes to stockpiling bajillions of cosmetics, lotions, shampoos, and such – not only are my bathroom cabinets full of the stuff but I also had some drawers in a dresser and a small linen closet in the hall almost completely devoted to the stuff.

I checked over each and every item to decide whether or not to keep it. And I probably ended up discarding about two thirds of what I previously owned.

I started by checking over each product for a printed expiration date to make some easy headway.

Next I checked for period after opening symbols which look like little open containers typically with a number of months that product is good for after opening printed on it. If it had a period after opening symbol on it and I remembered when I purchased the item (or could easily search my Gmail for an order confirmation), I calculated the approximate date until it would expire and then made a label with my label maker to stick on the product so that I wouldn’t have to look it up again. I discarded any items I couldn’t remember purchasing or that were past their estimated expiration dates.

For everything that was left, I went through the remaining items and plugged lot numbers or batch codes into this cosmetic calculator to see when they were manufactured and what the estimated shelf life was. After calculating estimated expiration dates based on that information, I stuck date labels to those items as well.

There were very few product categories where I was left with not a single item remaining but I did massively simplify my collection. I did need to restock on a few basics like eye makeup remover (couldn’t remember when I bought it and want to be particularly careful with things I putting on or near my eyes), eyeliner, foundation, concealer, and lip balm (yes I had one in pretty much every room of the house and I’m slightly disgusted to know that some were 5 or more years old – but I’d rather fix the situation than continue to use those). As I bought my replacement products, I affixed an expiration date label to each of those items too.

The plan now to make sure I keep my products fresh and focus on quality over quantity is to buy just one of each type of product and make sure that it’s of the best quality. Makeup items are something I rarely, rarely use up so I expect I’ll only be replacing those items as they expire (I’m down from seemingly hundreds of everything to one eyeliner, one eyeshadow, 2 blushes, a small handful of lipglosses). For other products like shampoo and body wash, I’ll buy a single new bottle each time I open my last bottle on hand.

I’d rather have one really nice lipbalm or bottle of shampoo than 20 cheap ones that expire before I finish them up and I think it’s a healthier plan too.

{ 3 comments }