Does Sunscreen Expire?
As summer inches closer and temperatures climb, you might be inclined to make good use of your quarantined time by sunbathing in your backyard, on your balcony or even on your doorstep. If you absolutely must, it would be wise of you to put on sunscreen first.
This could mean unearthing the ancient spray bottle you have stashed away deep in your bathroom cabinet. But when you finally get to spritzing your bod, the sunscreen dribbles out as a liquidy mess, leaving you unsure about the near future of your delicate skin, and even more unsure about the adequacy of a sunscreen older than your graying dog.
Here’s the Deal with Sunscreen Expiring
You should be skeptical, because sunscreen can indeed expire. As our very own product guru Kyle Zimmerman explains, all sunscreens in the U.S. have an expiration date — typically between two and three years after they were manufactured — which should be noted somewhere on the packaging.
Why Does Sunscreen Even Expire, Anyway?
Using a sunscreen beyond its expiration date is perilous not only because the consistency will be all runny, making it tough to achieve an even application, but also because the ingredients in expired sunscreen that normally serve to protect your skin will now freaking suck at doing so.
As dermatologist Shari Marchbein explained to Allure, “Like food, sunscreen can go bad and the ingredients can spoil, leading to a watery consistency. They also become less effective, which means a significant increase in the potential for sunburns, sun damage, brown spots, and the risk for skin cancer development.” Hopefully, nobody needs to tell you that all of this is bad news.
How to Tell if Your Sunscreen Might’ve Gone Bad
Just like with the random takeout boxes that have been at the back of the fridge for a while, if the texture, smell, or color of your sunscreen seems off or weird, it’s probably best to say goodbye and pick up a replacement bottle.
Remember how we discussed the importance of an even and uniform sunscreen application a couple of paragraphs ago? How said even application is what keeps your skin fully protected? If your sunscreen expires, the ingredients that protect you from harmful UV rays can separate, become runny, and generally lose strength and become less effective. All of those things would, of course, make your sunscreen less likely to protect you from sunburn and, even worse, different types of skin cancer.
Even more than the potential for sunscreen, the expiration of ingredients in your sunscreen can also potentially cause skin irritation. Think about it, expired food would likely irritate your tummy; why wouldn’t expired ingredients not also potentially hurt your literal biggest organ (which is, spoiler alert, your skin)?
Rule of thumb: if you’re feeling iffy about your current sunscreen and how long you’ve had it, it’s okay to part with it and make room for a new one. The safety and comfort of your skin is not something to play around with, and your skin and peace of mind are both worth the cost of some new SPF.
Tips for Storing Your Sunscreen to Extend It’s Shelf Life
Make Sure You Store it with These Two Facts in Min
So, what will it take to keep your sunscreen working for you for as long as humanly possible? Similarly to a lot of the grooming products in your routine, the trick to keeping your sunscreens safe is to keep any SPF product in a cool, dry place. In the medicine cabinet, under the sink, in that one closet that you shove all of your random stuff into and hope it doesn’t avalanche down on you when you try to open the door? All perfectly suitable places for your SPF to live when it’s not in use, valiantly protecting you from the sun’s harmful rays.
Direct sunlight and high heat are the two things that’ll send your sunscreen to an early grave. So perhaps when you go on your sunny summertime adventures this year, consider keeping your sunscreen stowed in a cool and shady spot. Consider avoiding setting your sunscreen down to sunbathe next to you in the scalding sand on the hot beach, consider avoiding storing your sunscreen next to the pool for easy access all summer. It might be a little annoying, but give your SPF a little home inside, it’ll be better for everyone.
When to Say to Heck with It, and Just Get a New Sunscreen
Of course, pay attention to the actual expiration date on your sunscreen and adhere to that guideline for best skin protection results. If you can’t find an expiration date on the packaging (it should really be there though!), just make sure you dispose of your sunscreen after three years. A hot tip for sunscreen that doesn’t have a visible expiration date on it: write the date you open the packaging in permanent marker somewhere on the bottle, then you’ll always know when you initially started it and when the three year time frame is up.
Outside of that, consider replacing your sunscreen if it somehow ends up spending a prolonged amount of time in intense heat or severe sunlight. Say, in the trunk of your car for the entire month of August during record breaking temperatures, or on the side of the pool from the first day of the summer to the first day of autumn. Take good care of your sunscreen and in turn, it’ll take good care of you and your precious skin.
If you’re in the market for an SPF for yourself and your face, we’ve got an awesome and not at all biased (like, not biased at all) recommendation for you. Our Oil-Free Face Moisturizer with SPF 30 is a lightweight, dermatologist tested, and non-greasy formula that’s excellent sun protection. This product is a great way to integrate daily facial SPF into your morning routine (which everyone should be doing anyway!), just be sure to reapply SPF as the day goes by for ultimate sun protection.
Already got your facial sun protection covered? Check out some of our other skincare favorites, like Oil Control Face Wash (for face washing), Acne Eraser (for acne busting in as quick as two hours), or Eye Savior (for smoothing wrinkles and minimizing eye bags). We’ve been in the shaving/skincare/overall whole body grooming game for over a decade now, and we’re happy to be able to apply all of the knowledge we’ve gathered to different ways to protect your skin and make you look and feel good. We love these products, our Members love these products, and we think you will too.
Okay, now back to the blog post.
So, as it turns out, the best use for that archaic expired sunscreen you just dug out of your bathroom cabinet is having it take up space in the bottom of a trash can.
On the plus side, we just released some really cool, super epic, mega impressive sunscreens to help you keep your magnificent skin safe for the rest of time (or at least until the sun eventually explodes, and sunscreen becomes completely useless). And if you need help getting your back before you put that doorstep to good use, hey – you got it, dude.
