It is summertime. Everyone goes out to wear their favorite brand of sunscreen. (Really, you should wear it all year long!) So you go to your bathroom closet, cupboards, ect and pull out your sunscreen and head for the beach. WAIT! STOP! Is that sunscreen still good? What do you mean still good, you ask? I mean, has your sunscreen expired?
It sounds odd in our minds that sunscreen should expire, but it does. If you look at the back of your sunscreen bottle, you will always find a date stamped somewhere on it. This is the date that it will expire. Just like food or medicine that is expired, you should pay attention to the expiration date of your sunscreen as well.
Just as your milk expires when the ingredients become old, your sunscreen has ingredients that can get old too. The things that are combined to make your sunscreen can lose its effectiveness. Then it will not help your skin at all. You might as well be rubbing shampoo or cream of mushroom soup because none of it is helping protect your skin!
The ingredients in sunscreen once aged, having no usefulness, and thus, is wasted. Once the ingredients are expired, it’s inadequate—the sunscreen won’t work any longer, won’t guard you from the sun’s rays. If the components aren’t superior anymore, then it is of no use to you; sunscreen is supposed to defend and care for you from the destructive effects of ultraviolet radiation, the emission from the sun that causes your skin to burn as well as cancer. That is the role that sunscreen is supposed to perform. However, if the ingredients expire, then the sunblock won’t protect you like it’s supposed to.
I would suggest you go to your closet, cupboard, car, or wherever you sunscreen lotion is kept. Take inventory of all your sunscreen expiration dates. (While you’re at it, go ahead an look at all the expiration dates of everything!) Check all the bottles and see if the dates are still good. If there is no date, throw it away unless you are 100% certain of when you purchased it.
Another thing to remember is that a lot of makeups come with sunscreen. How long has that makeup been in your purse of bathroom tote? If you are not sure and there is no expiration date, the best rule of advice it to simply toss it. You can always use it as an excuse to buy new colors!
