I had a dry elbow, so I put some E45 cream on it and was about to go to bed when I realised it’s best before date was Jan '92.
Anyone any ideas what it will do to my elbow?
Will it still work?
First off, what is E45??
Ah. It’s a heavy duty moisturiser containing: “white soft parafin B.P. 14.5%, light liquid parafin B.P.C. 1963 11.6%, anhydrous lanolin B.P. 1.0% and a specially formulated emulsion base”
I normally treat "best before"s with a pinch of salt if the product is supposed to last for several years. If it still looks like E45, smells like E45 and feels like E45 it probably still is E45. I bought a bottle of acetone solvent the other day to clean of some gunk. It had a best before date of 2008. I can not see how it can alter its chemistry in 4 years and I won’t be throwing it away till it is finished.
Yes, if it looks and smells OK, you’re probably fine. The expiration dates on moisturizers are there because sooner or later, the oils inside will go rancid. When that happens, you’ll know it due to smell, separation or discoloration. If the oils have gone rancid, I wouldn’t use it due to asthetics, but you won’t hurt yourself with it using it externally.
Man, that’s an extraordinarily useless label – a “specially formulated emulsion base”? The other ingredients listed are a little over a quarter of the formula. Nonetheless, the mineral oil and paraffin oil can’t go rancid, and it’s pretty rare (if not impossible) for lanolin, too. The rest of the ingredient list:
These other ingredients are water, preservatives, a gel-forming polymer, and several soapy/waxy materials that help to keep the cream from separating (that’s what the polymer does, too). I’d guess that this cream is about 50-60% water. The “best before” date probably is probably related to the cream separating, rather than anything going rancid.
Oh, the sodium hydroxide is there to make the polymer gel, and the citric acid is there to buffer the pH to a comfortable range for human skin.
If it doesn’t stinky and it hasn’t seperated, you’re fine.
Any active ingredients may no longer be active, but it will still moisturize just fine (and it doesn’t look like it has any active ingredients.)