Spring Clean Your Makeup

As you can see from the picture above, every monday, or at least until I run out of things to say, every other week or so, I'll be having a Mainstream Monday. I'll be giving you a little bit of "Makeup 101", tips and tricks on how to apply liner, what is mascara, the basics. I wanted to call it mainstream monday, just because it's a bit of common sense, but a LOT of people don't know these things that could better themselves at makeup, A LOT of people. I'm glad though, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten to make this channel:). 

Today it's all about makeup lifespan.

Yes, just like food, makeup products don't last, but they do last longer than a week, unless you wear makeup everyday. 

Let's start with why you should clean out your old makeup stash.

Bacteria. Enough said right? No? Bacteria grows on everything, good or bad. Making sure your makeup isn't out of date will surely help you in the long run to prevent any pink eye, cold sores, breakouts, you know, the "ruined my day" type of thing. Also, rarely, you could get stuff even worse, like go blind! Just because you wanted to wait it out with that flakey, already funked out mascara.mmmhmmm.

So, let's start with eye makeup;

Mascara: 4-6 months

Give or take, you should dump out that mascara miracle after 6 months.You can already tell that it's clumping on you, the smell is so chemically and fumey, and there's more product on the brush than the brush itself! Of course, if you're still not concerned, you could always do the paper towel trick. Dampen a paper towel and run the mascara brush through the paper towel. Did you find any flakey specks on your paper towel? You know what it is? "It's a Mess!". Throw it away, you know you don't want to, but you want to save your eye from any bad things right?

Eyeshadow/Blush: 1-2 years

Wow right? If it's a powder, it's not really a problem, you can always sanitize it every two weeks with some good old 99.9% alcohol you can get at your local drugstore, and let it air dry for a few hours. BUT, with cream, if it looks like the product has shrunken in size, and the edges are clearly not hugging the edges like it's supposed to, throw it away. That just means it's dried, or drying out, and you're likely going to try to salvage it, but it's not worth it. For cream or powder shadow,and blushes too, if it doesn't blend well with your skin, you're taking a little too long to apply it to your face or eyes, it's time to stock up some new palettes on your shelf. If the pigmentation (color) just isn't right, maybe a tad off or it just looks all muddy like, dump it! Save your skin from horrible things!

Eyeliner: One year

Eyeliner pencils are the least of your worries when it comes to throwing away old makeup, just because, in my opinion, I can go without eyeliner pencils for a whole year and not use them, and be like, " I had eyeliner pencils?". Be if it's a gel liner, pencil liner, liquid liner. One year. Of course, there's ways to tell when to throw it out. For gel, it could be it's clumpy when you apply it with a brush, or the size of the product in the jar is considerably shrunken twice it's size. Liquid liners are the worst to tell, but it usually give or take 6 months into it. Liquid, like mascara, does have it's "bacteria hood", and even though it's still just as effective as it was the first time you got it, the bacteria in it, wasn't.Pencil liners, however, do last up to a year, considering you've sharpened them after each time you've applied it. This helps prevent less bacteria on your eyeliner, saving your eye a lot of stress. Did you know you can spray some alcohol on it too? The drugstore, pharmaceutical one silly.

Foundation,Concealer,Primer: One year

For Cream and liquid, you could either tell it cakes the crap out of your face, or all of a sudden within a week you see breakouts.I give it a week because it could be your medication or you're face wash routine, and you want to give it a chance. But, most packaging have a little sign that looks like a  recycle sign, with a number in the middle of it. 12, meaning 12 months, or 1, meaning 1 year. Very confusing, I know, but that's what the internet is for:)

You can tell also by the smell, eww.

Lipsticks,glosses: Eight months

Love your little collection huh? Well, if you haven't used them in awhile, prepare for cold sores! If you don't remember when you bought it, how long you've had it, you can tell. For lipsticks, the color is a tad off, or when applying the product isn't as creamy. For glosses, if you have to mix and pump your wand into the tube because of color seperation, yeah, dump it.

Makeup brushes: 1 year or longer

Depending on quality, natural or synthetic, and how many times you've washed these bad girls, you can make an investment in these. Wash them with an antibacterial soap like Dawn, and condition them with Extra virgin Olive Oil. These put together with lukewarm water an a few minutes for each brush, can help prevent breakouts, better the quality of your brushes, and your brushes will last longer. If your brushes start to unnecessarily shed a lot of hair, or they don't blend your makeup as well as they did before, it's time to say aloha to them. They had a good run, but it's time to say bye bye.

I hope you all have had a nice little read for today, so what are you waiting for? Start spring cleaning!:)