Care and Storage of Makeup, Part 1

by Valerie Gladstone — September 19, 2007

Having just returned from splurging at Sephora, I took a long hard look at the shelves in my bathroom where I keep my makeup, looking for space for my new purchases. It was not a pretty sight. Every other area of my apartment is neat but for some reason I just never have been able to keep my makeup in any kind of order. What's more, I hold on to stuff I know I never am going to use again--mascara that cakes, lip gloss with a blunted brush, tweezers that aren't sharp. So I decided to do some research on how to handle my problem, which I hope will help you too:

• Let Go--Don't hold on to stuff. Even makeup that you love. It goes bad just like food, and you'll end up putting bacteria on your face (yuk). Six months is about as long as you should keep anything. So figure out when you're buying a foundation, eye cream, or anything else about how much you will use. You may have to buy smaller quantities, to keep within the 6-month limit.
• Store Properly--Proper storage of cosmetics is essential to the life and quality of the products. When they aren't well stored, they deteriorate at a rapid rate, which is both costly and unhealthy.
• Bad Conditions--Dampness and moisture are most often what cause cosmetics to go bad. They change the composition of pressed powder, powdered blush, and powdered eye shadow, making them become crumbly and soft. Lipstick, cover sticks, cream eye shadows, and eyeliners can also become moldy and unhealthy to use. Because of hot baths, showers, and sudden temperature changes, the bathroom is by far the most humid room in the average home. The solution is to store cosmetics somewhere other than the bathroom.

Solutions

• The best place to store cosmetics is in a bedroom that is not connected to a bathroom, or in a storage cabinet in another room with consistently low humidity.
• Some people swear by storing makeup in freezer-size Ziploc bags and keeping them in the refrigerator. That way you can see exactly what you need and you can throw the bag out when they get dirty. The bags also protect your main bag during trips or flights, when screwtops inevitably come undone or plastic covers fall off your eye shadow, getting makeup everywhere, but only inside the Ziploc.
• They also refrigerate their moisturizers (body, face, eye area), toners, creams (hand, foot), foundations, lipsticks, cream eye shadows, and nail polishes. It keeps makeup longer and lipsticks from melting.

Coming up next week...additional storage solutions.