When Makeup Actually Expires: The PAO Symbol Explained

What expires, when, and the small symbol on the packaging that has been telling you all along

We spend a great deal on makeup and use surprisingly little of it. A lipstick is bought for one occasion and worn twice; a foundation is replaced before the bottle is half empty; an eyeshadow palette is used for a single shade and kept for years on the strength of the other eleven. The collection grows, most of it sits, and somewhere in the middle of it the products quietly expire without anyone noticing, because makeup that has gone off does not usually look or smell as though it has. It simply stops being safe, and people carry on using it and then wonder why their skin has started reacting.

The information has always been there, printed on the back of the packaging, in a symbol most of us have seen a thousand times without registering. It is a small open jar with a number and the letter M inside, and it stands for Period After Opening. A jar marked 12M means the manufacturer considers the product safe and effective for twelve months from the day the seal was broken, not from the day it was bought and not from the date printed on the box. The clock starts when you open it, which is why the symbol is so easy to overlook and so hard to apply once a year has passed and you cannot recall the season you first used it.

There is a second date to know about. Unopened products do not last indefinitely either, since oils turn, emulsions separate and preservative systems weaken on the shelf, so the stockpile bought in a duty-free rush three years ago is not the safe reserve it appears to be. Most unopened cosmetics hold for one to three years depending on the formula, with liquids at the shorter end and powders at the longer, and heat shortens all of them.

What follows is what the industry's own figures say about how long each category lasts, set on the basis of formula safety and preservative performance rather than on how a product happens to look to you.

Around the eye, where the rules are strictest

Mascara has the shortest life of anything in the bag, at three to six months, and the reason is mechanical. Each time the wand is pulled out and pushed back in, air travels down the tube with it, and the product sits directly against the lash line, which gives it both the highest bacterial exposure of anything you own and the least tolerance for it. Liquid eyeliner follows the same three to six month rule for the same reasons. Anyone who has pumped a drying wand to loosen the formula has, in doing so, done the very thing that shortens its life fastest.

Pencil eyeliner is a different matter and can last up to two years, because sharpening removes the exposed surface and gives you a clean edge each time. Cream eyeshadow sits at six to twelve months, while powder eyeshadow, having very little water in which anything can grow, holds for two years or more. Brow gel, which shares mascara's wand-and-tube problem, though it sits further from the eye, is usually given around eighteen months.

The eye is where the consequences are most immediate, and the standard advice from ophthalmologists is that eye makeup should never be shared and should be discarded entirely after any eye infection, since the product will have been reinfected each time it was used.

The face

Liquid foundation is generally given twelve months, sometimes as little as six, since its water content makes it hospitable in a way powder is not. Concealer runs to about twelve months. Powder foundation, blush and bronzer, all dry formulas, last two years and often longer if kept somewhere cool. Cream blush and cream bronzer sit between the two at roughly a year since they carry both oils and water.

One caveat deserves particular attention. If a foundation carries SPF, the sun protection is only reliable within the product's stated period, and an expired formula may deliver considerably less protection than the number on the bottle suggests, which matters for anyone treating a tinted moisturiser as their daily defence.

The packaging makes a real difference here, and it is worth noticing when you buy. A pump dispenser keeps air and fingers out of a formula and will always outlast the same product in an open jar, where every use introduces both. A jar of foundation dipped into with fingers for a year is a very different proposition from the same formula in a pump bottle.

The mouth

Lipstick lasts twelve to eighteen months, occasionally up to two years in formulas with stronger preservative systems. Lip gloss is shorter, at six to twelve months, particularly the wand varieties, for the same reason mascara is short-lived. Lip balm can run from one to three years depending on the formula, and lip liner, like its eye equivalent, benefits from sharpening and can last up to two years.

Lipsticks fail visibly more often than most categories, and the signs are easy to read. Beads of oil forming on the bullet, a texture that has gone waxy or drags rather than glides, and a smell that has turned faintly crayon-like: all of these indicate a formula whose oils have started to turn.

The tools, which almost nobody replaces often enough

This is where most collections fail. A makeup sponge is porous by design, which is what makes it good at blending and also what makes it a problem, since it absorbs product, oil and skin cells into a damp interior that surface washing does not fully reach. Manufacturers and professionals broadly agree on replacement every three to six months, with a wash after every use or as near to it as real life allows. A sponge that has lost its shape, developed a smell or become permanently stained has been telling you something for a while.

Brushes are far more forgiving and, properly looked after, will last one to three years and often considerably longer, which is what makes good ones worth buying. The maintenance is the part that matters: washed every seven to ten days for anything in regular use, and dried flat rather than upright, since water running down into the ferrule loosens the glue and is the most common way a good brush is ruined. A brush that sheds persistently, splays out of shape or never quite feels clean has reached the end regardless of what it cost.

Natural bristles and synthetics behave differently, and it is useful to know which you own. Natural hair, used for powder, holds oils and needs gentler washing and thorough drying. Synthetic, used for liquids and creams, is less absorbent, easier to clean properly and generally the better choice for anything with water in it.

The rest of the kit deserves the same attention and rarely gets it. Eyelash curlers should have their pad replaced every three months or so, since a flattened, cracked pad is what breaks lashes. Tweezers and lash curlers should be wiped with alcohol regularly. Powder puffs and any washable applicator need cleaning as often as sponges. And the makeup bag itself, which almost never gets washed, collects spilled product and belongs in the sink every few months.

Skincare, which follows the same rules

Skincare expires on the same principle and is more consequential when it does, since these are the products left on the skin for hours. Most creams and lotions carry a twelve-month period after opening, cleansers around a year, and sheet masks a year to eighteen months.

The actives are the ones to watch. Vitamin C, in its L-ascorbic acid form, is notoriously unstable, oxidising on contact with light and air, and a serum that has turned deep orange or brown has already lost a good deal of its potency. Retinol degrades in light, which is why it is sold in opaque tubes and airless pumps and why decanting it into anything clear is a poor idea. Both are best bought in smaller quantities and used consistently rather than saved.

Sunscreen deserves a paragraph of its own. It carries a genuine expiry date rather than only a period after opening, and the filters lose effectiveness past it, which means an old bottle is not a weaker sunscreen so much as an unreliable one. A tube left in a car through a Delhi summer has been through heat well beyond anything the formula was tested against and should be replaced regardless of the date printed on it.

Fragrance, at the other extreme, is the most durable thing on the shelf, and a well-stored bottle can last three to five years or more, though it will shift as it ages. Kept in light or warmth it turns faster, deepening in colour and going sour or metallic at the top notes. A dark cupboard is the right place for it, and the bathroom windowsill, where perfume is so often displayed, is the wrong one.

How to tell without the symbol

A great deal of makeup arrives without a legible date, particularly anything bought abroad or kept without its outer packaging. In that case the ordinary signs are reasonably reliable. A change in smell is the most trustworthy, and anything sour or simply different from how you remember it should go. Separation in a liquid, a foundation that has thickened or turned slightly orange, a powder with a hard glazed film on its surface, a lipstick with beads of oil on it, and mascara gone stringy or dry all indicate a formula that has broken down.

It is worth saying honestly that contamination can also develop with no visible sign at all, which is the argument for keeping to the timelines rather than trusting your eyes. The solution used by most people who work with makeup professionally is unglamorous and entirely effective, which is to write the month of opening on the base of the product with a fine marker or a small sticker. It takes five seconds and removes the guesswork.

The habits that extend everything

Heat and humidity shorten the life of every formula, which makes the bathroom, where almost everyone keeps their makeup, the worst room in the house for it. This matters more in an Indian summer than the timelines printed on European packaging suggest, since those figures assume storage conditions most of us do not have. A bedroom drawer, away from the window, is meaningfully better. A fridge is unnecessary for most things, though it does no harm to vitamin C serums and eye creams.

Beyond storage, the habits are simple. Lids closed properly. Hands clean before they go near a jar, or better, a spatula rather than fingers. Never water or saliva to revive a drying product. Sharpen pencils rather than resurrecting them. And no sharing, least of all of anything used around the eye.

None of this calls for throwing out everything you own. It calls for the small and slightly unwelcome exercise of turning the collection out onto a table twice a year, checking the tools first since those are almost certainly the oldest things there, and accepting that the lipstick you have kept for four years because you loved the shade is now, regrettably, an ornament.

QUICK REFERENCE: WHEN TO REPLACE

Eyes

Mascara — 3 to 6 months Liquid eyeliner — 3 to 6 months Pencil eyeliner — up to 2 years Cream eyeshadow — 6 to 12 months Powder eyeshadow — 2 years or more Brow gel — around 18 months

Face Liquid foundation — 6 to 12 months Concealer — 12 months Cream blush and bronzer — around 12 months Powder foundation, blush, bronzer — 2 years or more

LipsLipstick — 12 to 18 months Lip gloss — 6 to 12 months Lip liner — up to 2 years Lip balm — 1 to 3 years

NailsNail polish — around 2 years

Tools

Makeup sponges — replace every 3 to 6 months,

wash after each useBrushes — 1 to 3 years with care,

wash every 7 to 10 days

Eyelash curler pad — replace every 3 months

Makeup bag — wash every few months

Skincare and fragrance

Moisturisers and creams — 12 months

Cleansers — around 12 months

Vitamin C serum — 3 to 6 months once opened, sooner if it darkens

Retinol — 6 to 12 months, kept away from light

Sunscreen — follow the printed expiry, and replace anything stored in heat

Perfume — 3 to 5 years, kept cool and dark