What on your shelf has gone past it?

How it works.

1. Name the product, pick its category and check the months: the open-jar symbol on the pack beats the default.
2. Set the date you opened it and press Add to the shelf. The row shows the end date, the days left and a status.
3. Work down the list from the top, replace what is marked, and come back to the same shelf whenever you open something new.

What the open jar tells you

Two dates share the packaging of a cosmetic sold in the EU. A product that keeps for more than 30 months carries the open-jar symbol, a small tub with a number and an M, so 6M means six months from the day the lid first comes off. A product with a shorter life, 30 months or less, carries a date of minimum durability instead, the best-before line, and that clock runs from manufacture whether the seal is broken or not. Sunscreen usually shows both, and both count: 12 months once opened, and never past the printed date. The number in the symbol comes from the stability and preservation testing behind that formula, so it beats any rule of thumb, which is why the months in this tracker stay editable. The guide to expiry dates shows where the symbol sits on each pack.

Why mascara runs out first

Mascara has the shortest life on any shelf, 3 to 6 months, because the wand travels from the lash line into a warm damp tube several times a week and takes skin flora with it. Preservatives hold that traffic for a while and then stop holding it, and eye infections are the reason this limit is treated strictly. Powders last longest at about 24 months, since microbes need water and pressed powder has almost none. Foundation and concealer sit near 12 months, lipstick near 18, perfume near 36 in a dark cupboard. Vitamin C is its own case: L-ascorbic acid oxidises in contact with air and light and turns yellow, then orange, then brown, so a serum that has gone amber has lost potency well before its date, as the vitamin C guide explains. Fragrance oxidises too, and oxidised limonene and linalool sensitise skin more readily than the fresh molecules, one reason the named fragrance allergens have to appear on the label.

What this tracker is not

It counts days from what you type, nothing else. It cannot see whether a jar stood in a hot bathroom, whether fingers went into it or whether the pump stayed clean, and storage moves the answer in both directions: cool, dark and closed buys weeks, a sunny windowsill takes them back. Your senses come before the arithmetic. A changed smell, a separation that will not shake back together, a colour shift or a grainy texture means the product goes, whatever the count says, and anything that stings or reddens skin goes at once. The tracker flags a product 30 days before its end date so there is time to finish it, and the list stays in this browser under one key.

Frequently asked.

Guides behind this tool

Beauty When make-up expires: the open jar symbol and 30 months Beauty Fragrance allergens in cosmetics: what must be on the label Ingredients Vitamin C serums: forms, concentration and stability

More tools

The Shelf-Life Tracker counts days from the dates you type, it does not test a product and it cannot see how one was stored. Your eyes and your nose come first: anything that smells, looks or feels different goes, whatever the count says. This page is for general information and does not replace advice from a dermatologist, physician or qualified practitioner.