I have this question that I think is mundane and pointless but am not sure where it goes … so i’'l try here
I have no idea how long eyeliner pencils and lip-gloss are good. I don’t see a best by date on most of them, like I see on moisturizer or foundation has one sometimes. I look up makeup on Google and I got shopping site and song lyrics and not much of this is helpful.
I don’t wear foundation or much makeup so i don’t need much help but *nevertheless *i could use some.
Lip gloss of the sort with a wand and tube needs to be pitched after six months. Lip gloss that’s lipstick styled can, like lipstick, be kept for up to a year.
Pencil eyeliners that you sharpen can last up to 3 years. Liquid eyeliners no more than 6 months.
Throw out anything that’s gotten wet (water in your makeup bag, that sat) or smells funky or that you used when you were coming down with a cold or flu, or if you had a cold sore, eye infection, etc.
Thank you for your help, tumbleddown, I’ve already pitched a bunch of stuff.
No problem! Eye stuff I’m stringent about pitching regularly (I put dates in my phone’s calendar) because eye infections are just so dreadful to deal with. Everything else I’ll admit to being loosey goosey on, but a good lipstick/gloss never lasts me 6 months anyway!
Oh dear! I have makeup which is older than many Dopers. I think I should do a cull.
When I posted this the only thing I knewwas that mascara was only good for three months, so i had to ask. I don’t use foundation or blush, so I don’t think about it.
I did notice that some Bare Minerals stuff my mom bought has some dates on it- seems to me that the vast majority of cosmetics don’t have dates on them and could use them.
They do go off eventually. My mother hoarded her favorite lipstick when it was discontinued. Now, about five years later, they smell rancid and she had to throw them away 
Same here. :eek:
The main reason that makeup needs to be pitched is germs.
If you ONLY use your makeup on yourself (or use sterile methods to remove it to apply on other people) then technically you should be ok even after the normally given expiration dates. I am extremely tolerant of germs for my own self, and I use applicator-sterile removal methods on all of my makeup, so I have some powders and professional sticks that I use rarely and they’re pushing 10 years old now. I’m not really worried about it.
My general rule of thumb is that if it looks and smells the same as when I got it, it’s most likely ok. I’m sure that if I looked at them at a microscopic level, they’d be teeming with little beasties, but if I looked at just about anything in the world, I would see the same.
General rules for when things actually physically change are: for mascara, goes crusty after about 4 months, lip gloss dries up in about the same or sometimes less time, and lipstick can separate and/or go rancid after about a year. All of these changes are pretty darn obvious.
For my own personal makeup stash, I toss my mascara once a quarter, don’t use lip gloss on myself, and I toss my lipstick and pencils every two years, unless I notice they have changed in any way (which has happened once or twice when I impulse-bought a cheaper brand than usual). Powders I pretty much have kept indefinitely, but I use them most heavily, so they’re generally used up before much more than three years anyway. I don’t think I’ve ever tossed a powder for any reason other than it was used up.
As far as the germs go, there are two categories you should be really concerned about on a daily basis (again, less so if you use them only on yourself, but still - germs will populate anyway on anything, given enough time).
and 2) lip makeup, because lets be honest, you end up eating most all of it.
They’re the most dangerous, mostly they end up applied in and around your more vulnerable-to-germs facial orifices, and also because anything liquid or “smeary” is a much more hospitable environment for li’l nasties to grow.
Powders (and I do include eye powders here also) - meh. They’re dry and go on your (hopefully unbroken) skin, so they’re much safer long term.
While everyone wants to stay safe, you do have to realize that the makeup companies are very much invested in makeup “going bad” after a period of time, so that you continue to purchase more of it.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that they are purposefully pulling numbers out of their asses, but I do liken makeup expiry rules to the “best by” dates on most dried packaged food - it isn’t that the food goes BAD as soon as that date passes, just that it’s not *guaranteed *to be good after that date (to protect the manufacturer), and you as the consumer need to keep an eye on it for your own safety before you consume the product.