Spring Cleaning Your Beauty Products: What to Keep, Toss & Replace
Spring cleaning your skin care products is essential for maintaining healthy, effective routines. From checking expiration dates to reorganizing your products, here’s how to refresh your beauty cabinet for the season.
Check expiration dates and PAO symbols:
Expiration dates are easy – anything past its prime needs to be discarded. The PAO symbol is the open jar drawing on your skin and body care products with a number and the letter M inside of it. 12M means use within 12 months of opening. That is sometimes harder to keep track… a good tip is to write the open date on the bottom of a jar or the side of a bottle to serve as a reminder.
Skincare products expire, and using expired products can reduce effectiveness and increase the risk of irritation or contamination. Here's your cheat sheet about when you should throw away skin care products?
- smell change
- texture change
- color change
- past PAO
Organize your skin care products by category:
If you’re like us, you own a few different eye creams, various moisturizers, more than one serum, and a couple of masks. Put like with like and order them so as to mirror the order in which you apply products (always from thinner to thicker textures).
Clean your beauty tools & brushes:
Clean your brushes with soap (or shampoo) and water regularly. This applies to makeup brushes, but also to the brush heads of any cleansing device you may use.
Replace old accessories:
If you use a body loofah in the shower, replace it regularly. Spring cleaning applies to products as much as it does to tools and accessories.
Update your skin care for the season:
Remember to update your skin care products for Spring the way you do your clothes (think of it as your skin care wardrobe). It’s time to transition to a lighter moisturizer, to recommit to SPF, and to start paying attention to your body
