She adds that a watery consistency is often the first sign of sunscreen gone bad. If the smell seems normal, put a little bit on a stable surface like a table or your bathroom vanity and check out how the sunscreen physically looks. If it smells rotten or overly sweet, toss it,” she says. Parcells suggests the following to discern if your sunscreen has expired. “The first thing you can do is open the bottle and smell it. If you can’t find the expiration date and you don’t remember when you bought it, Dr. For optimal sun protection, as well as texture, stability, and sterility, use the sunscreen prior to the expiration date.” “This is often found on the backs of bottles or on the crimp end of tubes. “Expiration dates are stamped on sunscreen containers to specify the time limit for the product’s stability and efficacy,” Hadley King, MD, board-certified dermatologist tells Sunday Edit. This gets tricky if, like me, you can’t even remember what you ate for lunch yesterday let alone when you purchased your sunscreen or if you can’t find an expiration listed on the bottle itself or on the packaging (which is probably long gone). The FDA considers sunscreen a non-prescription drug and therefore requires that it have an expiration date, “unless stability testing conducted by the manufacturer has shown that the product will remain stable for at least three years,” per the FDA’s website. Why does this matter? “With time, certain components of the cream will start to break down, and this affects the sun protective quality of the product, leaving you with an increased risk of sun damage and skin cancer,” Dr. “There are many ingredients in sunscreen, and, just like food, the recipe can go bad,” Alexis Parcells, MD, board-certified plastic surgeon and owner of Parcells Plastic Surgery, tells Sunday Edit. And unlike using an expired mascara, for example, which may be dry and hard to use but is usually pretty harmless, using an expired sunscreen can actually put your skin in danger. The short answer here is yes, sunscreen does expire. Here we spoke to two doctors to get the scoop, and spoiler alert, it may be time to toss that old tube. If you find yourself dusting off an old bottle or tube of SPF, you’ll want to know if sunscreen can expire. Now that we prepare for a summer that will hopefully be spent at pools, beaches, and just generally outside jumping into the arms of friends, chances are you’ll be reaching for a sunscreen that didn’t get much airtime last summer. You already know that you’re supposed to be wearing sunscreen every day but let’s face it: in the winter months (or just saying, when you’re inside all the time due to a pandemic) you may opt for a moisturizer with a low SPF, or - derms close your eyes - maybe you even skip the sunblock some days.
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