Know when to toss it.
Every product starts a countdown the day you open it — the little open-jar symbol nobody reads. Log your open dates once, and this shelf keeps score for you: what's fresh, what to use up soon, and what's quietly gone off.
Your shelf stays private — saved on this device, and to your free account when you're signed in.
Search for a product above, tell us the month you opened it, and it joins your shelf with a live countdown to its period-after-opening deadline. No account needed — everything works right here, and stays private to you.
The shelf-life cheat sheet
Typical PAO by category- Water-based serums
- 6–12 months — water invites microbes, so the preservative system is doing real work from day one.
- Creams in jars
- 6–12 months. Fingers = bacteria; every dip donates a little of your microbiome to the formula. A spatula buys you time.
- Pumps & airless packaging
- 12–18 months — the formula never meets air or fingers, which is most of the battle.
- Sunscreen
- 12 months once opened, and never past its printed expiry date — degraded filters lose SPF you can't see or feel.
- Vitamin C
- 3–6 months once opened, whatever the label says — trust the color. Amber means oxidizing, brown means done.
- Powders
- 24–36 months — no water, nothing for microbes to live on. The longest-lived things on your shelf.
Your opened-product shelf — saved on this device, and to your free account when you're signed in. See or clear it in My Library.
- K-BeautyYou Can Read Why Korean Sunscreen Is Better. You Still Can't Buy It at Target.The blocker isn't chemistry — it's a classification. In the US a sunscreen is a drug, and that single word explains the empty shelf, the relabelled bottles, and what finally changed in June 2026.
- Natural & BotanicalUnrefined Sounds Better and Is Sometimes Worse. Here's the Actual Trade.Every word on a plant oil label describes what was left in — including the proteins that sensitise and the compounds that go rancid — and the variable that decided the one head-to-head trial isn't printed anywhere.
- Sustainable BeautyYour Empty Jar Is Technically Recyclable and Almost Certainly Wasn't Recycled'Recyclable' is a statement about a polymer. Whether your jar was recycled depends on a screen size, an infrared sensor that cannot see black, and whether anyone wanted the bale — none of which are printed on the label.
- Clean Beauty & Marketing'Preservative-Free' Is the One Clean Claim That Can Actually Hurt YouOrganic is a sourcing claim. Cruelty-free is an ethics claim. Preservative-free is a microbiological claim about a jar you will open with your fingers every morning for three months — and it is the only one on the shelf with a body count behind it.
How the tracker works
Nearly every product in the DermApproved database carries its manufacturer-stated period-after-opening — the number inside the little open-jar symbol on the packaging — along with how long a typical tube or bottle lasts in daily use. When you add a product and log the month you opened it, the tracker projects forward by that PAO and gives you a real expiry date, a progress bar for how far through the window you are, and an early "use soon" flag when you're inside the final sixty days.
Your shelf is saved in your own browser, so it's still here next month when you can't remember whether that retinol was opened in spring or last autumn. Products we don't stock the PAO for get a conservative 12-month assumption, clearly marked — and anything not in our database at all can be added manually with the PAO printed on its jar.
Common questions
What does the little open-jar symbol on my moisturizer mean?
That open jar with a number like "12M" is the period-after-opening (PAO) mark — a European labeling requirement that tells you how many months the product stays good once you break the seal. It has nothing to do with the purchase date: a cream bought two years ago but never opened hasn't started its 12-month clock yet.
Does skincare really expire, or is that just a legal formality?
It genuinely expires, on two fronts. Actives like retinol, vitamin C, and SPF filters chemically degrade with air, light, and time — so the product quietly stops doing its job. Meanwhile the preservative system gets used up with every pump and dip, and once it quits, bacteria and mold move in.
How can I tell a product has turned before the date says so?
Trust your senses over the label. A shifted color (vitamin C going amber or brown is the classic), a sour or "off" smell, visible separation into layers, or a texture that suddenly went watery or grainy all mean the formula has broken down. When any of those show up, the PAO date is irrelevant — it's done.
Should I keep my skincare in the fridge to make it last longer?
Sometimes. Refrigeration meaningfully slows the oxidation of L-ascorbic acid vitamin C and can extend the life of some peptide serums, so those are worth the fridge shelf. Oils, balms, and most creams don't need it — cold can even make some emulsions separate — and no fridge rescues a product whose preservatives have already given out.
Is it actually dangerous to use expired sunscreen?
Effectively, yes — not because it becomes toxic, but because degraded UV filters silently lose protection while the lotion looks and feels exactly the same. You apply what you think is SPF 50, get something far weaker, and skip reapplying because you feel covered. Dermatologists advise replacing sunscreen every 12 months and never using it past its printed expiry.