For beauty product hoarders, a bizarre issue that pops up from time to time is finding yourself with makeup that's expired before you had a chance to use it all. And as common as this issue is, these use by dates don't appear to be very common knowledge. We're pretty much all guilty of holding on to our favorite mascara or holy grail foundation for way longer than their optimal lifespan — perhaps at least partially because we don't exactly know how to tell when it's time to toss our makeup.
Using expired products is nothing to mess with: As Women's Health reported, keeping makeup for too long can lead to crappy consistencies, lowered efficacy, and bacteria growth. It's just not worth risking your skin.
There's one foolproof way to tell if your makeup's expired that's literally printed on the label of almost every product (seriously, once you see it, your life's gonna change for good). But if you're no good at keeping track of when exactly you cracked open that new moisturizer, there are plenty of other methods (handily outlined in the video below) that can help you decide whether your product has a little more life left or if you should surrender it to the trash.
