Well I was going to chime in and say that I still use eye shadow that’s about three years old but…I think you beat me there! I didn’t know makeup was physically capable of lasting that long. I usually throw mine out after a year or so, because mascara gets gummy and eyeshadow starts crumbling apart after a while.
They’re not from 1968, but I have a couple of eyeliner pencils that say “Made in W. Germany.”
Try Burt’s Bees (yeah, someone else beat me to it, but we can’t say it too many times). It works better for me than other lip balms, so I don’t have to use it as often. And it’s tasty! And they have tinted lip balm, so you can have a little color with that delicious minty flavor (those are a lot smaller, though).
Have you heard the way mine talk to me?
And to answer the question: I have never seen a standard lip balm tube ( like this: http://a1468.g.akamai.net/f/1468/580/1d/pics.drugstore.com/prodimg/20619/300.jpg ) that wasn’t almost completely filled up. I have never run across a tube that only has a small bit of the tube filled with balm, unless it was a free sample-type thing.
If you make the mistake of buying a new brand, just on a whim, and find you don’t like the smell or the consistency, you can be sure it’ll last for years. Sod’s Law.
That’s disgusting.
Seriously - you could have said that you reuse her dirty maxi-pads and it wouldn’t have grossed me out more.
Ew.
Well, it just grossed me out more.
Much more.
Eww.
I’m confused. I think eyeshadow is sold as a sticky (ie vaguely greasy) powder that you brush onto your face with a small paintbrush. Alternatively, it’s sort of a grease pencil you draw on your face with with. As you can see, I’m NOT a makeup expert.
I fail to see how sharing either of those things would be gross. If I took a cotton ball and wiped it across the back of my hand and then yours, would that gross you out? That’s what we’re doing if we share the paintbrush. What if I dipped it in flour or vaseline first to mimic the makeup? How would that increase the sharing-is-gross factor?
If I drew on my arm with a magic marker, then on yours, would that gross you out? That’s the same as us sharing a grease pencil.
I’m not trying to be a jerk, I’m just baffled as to what’s gross about this. I can fully understand not sharing a toothbrush or an enema kit. I can sort-of understand not sharing a lipstick or chapstick. But a grease pencil used on a non-orifice part of your body? I’m just not getting it. We touch other people’s (stranger’s) skin almost every day, and touch things they’ve touched 100x more than that.
I have a tube of Blistex that’s almost empty (the little plastic part holding the base of the product is about 2 millimeters from the top). I just wound it ALL the way back down to see where it was when it started. It goes back all the way to the bottom of the tube.
The amount of product in there is definitely not the minority of the length of the container. The only real “wasted” space would be the small plastic piece forming the base, and the amount of product left in there when you’ve reached it.
Or Blistex’ quality assurance guys let one slip through.
the tubes are probably small so you can carry it in your pocket… and if there was more it’d go bad… also they make more money with the small containers.
I’m not alice, but I can think of possible things like pinkeye. And assorted other fun eye infections. Not to speak of possible skin rashes and infections that the other person might have been carrying. The makeup implements might seem OK, but they’re also fertile ground for bacteria to spread through the stickiness that you’ve noted.
And 1968 is pretty impressive – I’d have thought that makeup would’ve broken down/separated out by now.
Congratulations on reading the thread. If you open a tube of unused lip balm, the lip balm DOES go nearly all the way to the end.
[hijack]
"That’s disgusting.
Seriously - you could have said that you reuse her dirty maxi-pads and it wouldn’t have grossed me out more.
Ew."
I can’t fathom how you can compare sharing an old eyeshadow with your sister to sharing a used maxi pad… I understand that sharing makeup can seem gross to you but come on! A product that is intended for external use only and not in contact with bodily fluids compared to a product made to be the receptacle of menstrual waste in direct contact with many orifices. Hmmm, to me: very very different things!
When I first read the so called offensive comment, I thought: “Time to ditch that old crap and get new makeup” but not "ew, that’s as freaky as if she would use her sister’s used maxi pad!
I wouldn’t recommend sharing makeup or using some that is old but I wouldn’t denigrate a person who does. I mean really, the chances of getting infections through makeup are so remote (unless sharing with people regularly), and in this case it was inherited from her sister a while ago.
I love seeing germophobes freak 
We’ve survived quite well without disinfecting everything and now it’s such a panic about lurking germs that are around every little corner just waiting to pounce on you and infect you with horrible diseases.
Unstable
Heh, my grandma used to use cake eyeliner and mascara back in the day, and she would just use her spit to moisten the cakes instead of going and getting water. Never got an eye infection, either.*
Besides, maybe teela brown does what I do when I get an eyeshadow from someone else: paint the top with rubbing alcohol and allow to dry. It’s not perfect, but it makes me feel safe enough. There was a thread earlier in the year with a Doper who had a lot of extra makeup, used, and sent it to fellow Dopers who wanted it (Thanks!); is that just as disgusting as using her used maxi-pad?
*[sub]No, I’m not saying that using spit to apply cosmetics directly on your eyes is a good and safe thing, but I do think sometimes we excessively worry about germs. [/sub]
Makeup goes rancid after only a few months. I don’t think it’s the sharing, it’s the AGE of the makeup.
Sharing isn’t always safe (pinkeye comes to mind) but makeup that old is pretty nasty.