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Do a quick check of any woman's bathroom, and chances are you'll find jars of rarely used face cream, the dregs of a favorite powder blush, and at least one tube of lip gloss squeezed within an inch of its life.
This hoarding habit has a catch because beauty products go bad. At best, they stop performing as well as they used to, and at worst, they can cause irritations or infections. U.S. labeling regulations don't require an expiration date on most cosmetics, but Good Housekeeping has some easy tips on when to throw away what. Toss-it time: Six months for liquids; two years for powders. You increase the odds of bacterial growth when you repeatedly dip your brushes and fingers into liquid foundation. Powders present less of a problem, because bacteria can't grow where there isn't any water. Over time, powders with botanical ingredients such as aloe or jojoba can become harder to blend and are more likely to crumble, as their trace amounts of water evaporate. Toss-it time: Three months. "A mascara tube is a dark, wet environment - the perfect breeding ground for bacteria," said New York City optometrist Andrea Thau. "Preservatives in a mascara only work for so long." Three-month-old mascara is a nonperformer. To avoid hastening the demise of mascara, never pump the wand - that pushes air into the tube, causing it to dry out faster. Instead, slowly draw out and twist the brush to scrape the tube's interior and pick up product. Toss-it time: Liquid eyeliners, three months; cream eye shadows, six months; pencil eyeliners and powder eye shadows, two years. Bacteria tend to flourish in liquid-eyeliner tubes. Pencil eyeliners have a longer shelf life because you can create a fresh, clean surface each time you sharpen them. Just be sure to regularly sanitize your sharpener with rubbing alcohol. Powder shadows are less prone to contamination because they also lack water (if you wet them, toss after six months). Aging eye shadows have performance issues - they get packed down, making it harder to pick up pigment with your brush, said makeup artist Cristina Bartolucci. Toss-it time: Lipstick and gloss, two years; lipliner, two years or more. A lipstick's water content makes it a potential minireservoir of bacteria. Lipsticks also dry out with age. According to New York City makeup artist Tina Turnbow, older lipsticks "no longer look creamy on the lips." Long-wearing formulas may have an even shorter life span, because they often contain ingredients that evaporate more quickly than creamier formulas. Pencil lipliners may last a little longer because putting them through a sharpener removes the old surface. * On another matter: Redoing the floors in your home can lead to makeover madness. Good Housekeeping suggests you stay grounded with help from the World Floor Covering Association's amped-up Web site. On wfca.org, you'll learn care tips for each type of surface and take quizzes to learn what you should choose, from bamboo to Berber. You can virtually "install" your choices on the site's preloaded example rooms. Or for $25, try the advanced feature, in which you upload and customize photos of your room with as many as 826 floor styles and find out what each version would cost. Discuss Add this link to... Bury
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