When make-up expires: the open jar symbol and 30 months
Under Regulation 1223/2009, and its retained version in the UK, a cosmetic that keeps for more than 30 months needs no printed durability date at all. In its place comes the open jar mark, point 2 of Annex VII, with a figure such as 6M, 12M or 24M: the period after opening for which the product is safe to use, counted from the day you broke the seal. Shorter lived products carry a date instead, preceded by an hourglass or the words best used before the end of, and the reason both marks exist sits inside the pack, where a UK study of 467 donated items found bacteria in 79 to 90 percent of them.
The two marks on the pack
Annex VII of the Regulation holds just 3 symbols: a hand and a book, an open jar and an hourglass. Point 3 sets the hourglass in front of the date of minimum durability, which the law defines as the date until which the product, stored under appropriate conditions, will continue to fulfil its initial function. The words best used before the end of do the same job. The date runs as month and year, or day, month and year, in that order, and the label may add the conditions needed for it to hold.
The open jar is the other route. Where the minimum durability runs beyond 30 months, the Regulation drops the requirement for a date and asks instead for the period of time after opening during which the product is safe to use, shown by the symbol in point 2 of Annex VII followed by a period in months or years. 6M, 12M and 24M are the figures you meet most often. The period starts when you open the pack, so nothing printed on it tells you how much is left: the clock runs in your bathroom, not in the factory.
Two gaps follow. A product can carry neither mark, since the period after opening is not required where the idea does not apply: single use items, products not at risk of deterioration and products that do not open. And nothing records how long the stock sat in a warehouse, since the batch number required by Article 19 is the only trace back to manufacture.
| Product | Figure commonly printed | What sets it | Replace sooner if |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mascara and liquid eyeliner | 3M to 6M | Eye area, so the 100 CFU category, and a wand that returns through the lashes | It dries out, drags or the eye stings |
| Make-up sponges | No figure on the sponge itself | 79 donated sponges averaged over 1 million CFU per millilitre; 93 percent were never cleaned | It has been dropped, or will not wash clean |
| Liquid foundation and concealer | 6M to 12M | A water phase plus daily contact with fingers or a sponge | It separates, thickens or darkens |
| Lipstick, lip balm and cream blush | 12M to 18M | Little or no water, but direct contact with lips and skin | The smell changes or droplets form on the surface |
| Pressed powder and eyeshadow | 24M to 36M | Almost no water, so growth is slow; eye shades still sit in the 100 CFU category | A hard glaze forms or it stops picking up |
| Nail varnish | 12M to 24M | Solvent loss and pigment settling rather than microorganisms | It strings, thickens or will not mix back |
| Sunscreen | The printed date, or 12M once opened, whichever is sooner | The function protected is the measured SPF, and filters are tested fresh | It has been left in heat or has separated |
What the months after opening are based on
The figure is the manufacturer's, not the legislator's: no law sets 6M or 12M for a product type, so the figures you meet by product are industry convention, each justified in the product safety report by a preservation challenge test, in which the finished formula is deliberately contaminated and the fall in the count measured. The 4 strains used are Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, Candida albicans and Aspergillus brasiliensis, and the test is mandatory for every product that may deteriorate, or become a route to infection, under normal conditions of storage and use.
What the preservative has to hold is written down. The SCCS Notes of Guidance carry the limits of the European standard EN ISO 17516, which sorts cosmetics into 2 categories. Category 1, products for children under 3 years of age, the eye area and mucous membranes, is allowed a total aerobic count of 100 colony forming units per gram or millilitre, out of limit above 200. Category 2, everything else, is allowed 1,000, out of limit above 2,000. Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus and Candida albicans must be absent from 1 gram or millilitre in both.
Those limits describe a batch leaving the factory. The guidance is blunt about what follows: from the moment the unit is opened until the last use, contamination is permanent, variable and additive, carried in by the home and the hands that use it. The period after opening estimates how long the preservative can absorb that traffic in that pack, which is why the same formula earns a longer figure in a pump than in a wide pot that takes 2 fingers a day. The Shelf-Life Tracker keeps opening dates in one place.
What grows in a product that is in use
The clearest UK evidence comes from a microbiology group at Aston University, published in 2020. The group cultured 467 donated products in 5 categories: 96 lipsticks, 107 lip glosses, 92 eyeliners, 93 mascaras and 79 make-up sponges. Between 79 and 90 percent carried bacteria, at loads of 100 to 1,000 colony forming units per millilitre, and Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Citrobacter freundii were among the 48 organisms identified from a subset of 25 products.
The sponges were in another league, averaging more than 1 million colony forming units per millilitre. Enterobacteriaceae were found in 26.58 percent of them and fungi in 56.96 percent. The reported habits go with the numbers: 93 percent had never been cleaned, and 64 percent had been dropped on the floor and used again. A damp sponge in a warm bathroom is a growth medium.
Read the figures for what they are. The products were donated rather than sampled at a known age, and the authors found no correlation between how long one had been in use and how contaminated it was, so no shelf life follows from the study. A contaminated product is also not an infection. What they do show is that loads in ordinary use sit at or above the limit a fresh batch has to meet, and that a mascara wand returns to the tube past the lashes every time. If an eye turns red, painful, sticky or blurred after you use a product, stop and see a doctor.
Signs a product has turned
Smell is usually the first sign. A sour or sharp note where there was none, or a fragrance gone flat, means the formula has changed. Colour is next: a foundation that has darkened, a cream that has yellowed, a varnish deepened in the bottle. Then texture: an emulsion that has separated and will not mix back, a serum that has thickened, a lipstick beaded with droplets, a pressed powder with a hard glaze that no longer picks up on a brush.
Mascara announces itself by drying out. The answer is a new tube, not water or eye drops added to the old one, since both dilute the preservative and add organisms to a product used on the eye area, which sits in the 100 colony forming unit category rather than the 1,000. Most mascaras carry 3M or 6M, and a stiffened sponge or anything used during an eye infection goes the same way.
A product can be well past its useful life and look normal. Preservatives are used up gradually and colour and texture often outlast the protection, so the printed figure still counts when nothing looks wrong. Stinging, itching, watering eyes or a rash that follows one product is worth acting on the same day, and the guide to fragrance allergens explains which names have to appear on the list.
Storage, and why sunscreen is the strict case
Every printed date comes with a condition attached. The Regulation defines the durability date for a product stored under appropriate conditions and lets the label state what those are. United States drug rules put it in one line: expiration dates come from stability testing and must relate to the storage conditions stated on the label. A shelf above a running shower, a sunny windowsill, a glovebox and a beach bag sit outside what was tested.
Heat and daylight speed up the chemistry the date was measured against, and steam adds water the formula never planned for. Closing a pot with wet fingers, leaving a cap off overnight, decanting into a jar for a 2 week trip: each shortens a figure set for a sealed pack opened cleanly. Powders forgive this; anything with a water phase does not.
Sunscreen is where none of this is negotiable, because the initial function its date protects is the sun protection factor itself. Filters are measured on fresh product, so the number on the front describes that formula, not a bottle that has spent 2 summers in a car; the filter guide covers what is doing the work. In the United States sunscreen is sold as a nonprescription drug, so it carries an expiration date unless stability data show it holds for at least 3 years; a bottle with no date is not open ended either. NHS advice is the practical version: make sure the sunscreen is not past its expiry date, marked by the open jar, an M and a number. Past that point replace it rather than stretch it, and the amount guide has the figure for the face.
Keeping the dates under control
- Write the month you opened it on the base of the pack; the open jar figure counts from that day, not from purchase.
- Keep the eye products shortest, since that area sits under a 100 CFU limit against 1,000 for the rest.
- Wash make-up sponges after every use and replace any that hit the floor.
- Never thin a drying mascara with water or eye drops; it dilutes the preservative.
- Store away from steam, sunlight and heat, because the printed date assumes the storage conditions on the label.
- Buy sunscreen in a size you can finish in 1 season and check the date before the first hot week.
Frequently asked
Does 12M mean the product goes off exactly 12 months after opening?
No, and no law sets 12M for any product type: it is the period the manufacturer has justified in the product safety report, based on a challenge test of that formula, rather than a legal schedule. Treat 12M as the outer limit for a product opened and stored normally, and replace it earlier if the smell, colour or texture changes.
Why do some cosmetics carry no date at all?
Under Regulation 1223/2009 the durability date is not required once the minimum durability passes 30 months, and the period after opening is not required where the concept does not apply, which covers single use items, products not at risk of deterioration and products that do not open. An aerosol or a sealed single use sachet can therefore carry neither mark.
How long should mascara last?
Most tubes carry 3M or 6M on the open jar, an industry convention rather than a figure set in law, and the eye area sits in the stricter microbiological category, at 100 colony forming units per gram against 1,000 for other products. Replace it when it dries out rather than adding water or eye drops, which dilute the preservative.
Can I still use last summer's sunscreen?
Only if it is still inside its printed date and was kept as the label says, since the date marks the point to which the product is expected to go on fulfilling its initial function, and for sunscreen that function is the SPF. Once the date has passed, replace it: a bottle that spent a holiday in a hot car, or that has separated, is not worth the risk of a burn.
Does keeping cosmetics in the fridge make them last longer?
The printed figure applies to the storage conditions the label states, and chilling is not usually one of them, so it buys no extra time on paper. Moving an emulsion in and out of the cold can also split it, so follow the label unless the product asks to be refrigerated.
My foundation smells odd but looks fine. Should I keep it?
No. A change in smell is one of the earliest signs that a formula has moved on, and contamination is not visible: in one UK study of 467 used products, bacterial loads ran between 100 and 1,000 colony forming units per millilitre.
Sources
- Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 November 2009 on cosmetic products, Article 19 and Annex VII · Consolidated English text of the Regulation, read in full for the labelling article. Source of the definition of the date of minimum durability as the date until which the product, stored under appropriate conditions, will continue to fulfil its initial function, the hourglass in point 3 of Annex VII and the alternative wording best used before the end of, the format of the date as month and year or day, month and year, the rule that the date is not mandatory above a minimum durability of 30 months and that the period after opening is shown instead with the symbol in point 2 of Annex VII, the exception where durability after opening is not relevant (recital 48: single use products, products not at risk of deterioration, products which do not open), the batch number requirement, point 1 of Annex VII for information carried on an enclosed leaflet, and Annex I Part A point 5, under which the stability of the product is tested under reasonably foreseeable storage conditions and its shelf life justified in the product safety report. This is EU law, so the 30 month threshold and the two symbols are a regional rule and not a worldwide one; the same open jar mark is described for United Kingdom readers on the NHS page cited below.
- SCCS Notes of Guidance for the Testing of Cosmetic Ingredients and their Safety Evaluation, 12th revision, SCCS/1647/22, Appendix 9 on the microbiological quality of the finished cosmetic product · European Commission scientific committee guidance, PDF read at Appendix 9. Source of the 2 product categories, of the limits carried over from EN ISO 17516:2014 (100 colony forming units per gram or millilitre for products for children under 3 years, the eye area and mucous membranes, out of limit above 200; 1,000 for other products, out of limit above 2,000; absence of Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus and Candida albicans in 1 gram or millilitre), of the challenge test being mandatory for products that may deteriorate or infect under normal conditions of storage and use and of its 4 test strains, and of the statement that contamination from the moment of opening to the last use is permanent, variable and additive.
- Bashir A, Lambert P. Microbiological study of used cosmetic products: highlighting possible impact on consumer health. Journal of Applied Microbiology. 2020;128(2):598 to 605 · Record and abstract on the university page of the authors, with the accepted full text read for the methods and results. Source of the sample: 467 used products donated by UK consumers in 5 categories, comprising 96 lipsticks, 107 lip glosses, 92 eyeliners, 93 mascaras and 79 sponge applicators. Source of the 79 to 90 percent of items contaminated with bacteria at 100 to 1,000 colony forming units per millilitre, the average above 1 million per millilitre in sponge applicators, Enterobacteriaceae in 26.58 percent and fungi in 56.96 percent of those sponges, the identification of Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Citrobacter freundii among 48 organisms typed by mass spectrometry from a subset of 25 products, the finding that 93 percent of sponges had never been cleaned and 64 percent had been dropped on the floor and used again, and the statement in the results that there was no correlation between duration of product use and level of contamination. An observational study of donated items with no known age, so it supports no shelf life figure of its own.
- 21 CFR 211.137, Expiration dating, Code of Federal Regulations · Current United States regulation text, read through the eCFR renderer because the page itself is script rendered. Source of the rule that an expiration date is determined by appropriate stability testing, that expiration dates shall be related to any storage conditions stated on the labelling, and of paragraph (h), under which the requirement is not enforced for human nonprescription products without dosage limitations that are stable for at least 3 years on appropriate stability data. Sunscreen is sold in the United States as a nonprescription drug, which is why its bottles carry an expiration date or nothing at all.
- Sunscreen and sun safety, NHS · NHS public health page, read in full. Source of the advice to make sure a sunscreen is not past its expiry date and of the description of the open jar symbol with an M and a number as the months the product lasts once it has been opened.
Read on
Skincare
How much sunscreen a face needs: the 2 mg per square centimetre rule
Ingredients
Mineral or chemical sunscreen filters: how they work
Beauty
Fragrance allergens in cosmetics: what must be on the labelTools that fit
This guide is for general information. It does not replace advice from a dermatologist, physician or qualified practitioner, or an examination.