RELATED: If You Bought This at Walmart, the FDA Says Stop Using It Immediately. If you start pouring out your sunscreen and it doesn’t look like it normally does, you should question it. According to the Children’s Skin Center, if your sunscreen has lost its original color or consistency, you need to throw it away. Things like clumping or a watery consistency are clear signs that your sunscreen has expired. Yes, sunscreen can go bad and its ingredients can spoil, Shari Marchbein, MD, a board-certified dermatologist in New York City, told Allure. You should never use your sunscreen after it expires, according to Marchbein. Expired sunscreen is “less effective, which means a significant increase in the potential for sunburns, sun damage, brown spots, and the risk for skin cancer development,” she told Allure. Not only that, but expired sunscreens can also irritate your skin, Jessica Wu, MD, a Los Angeles-based dermatologist, told Refinery29. “Over time, ingredients can break down and cause skin irritation and allergic reactions,” Wu explained. “Expired sunscreens can also start to grow mold or bacteria, leading to skin infections.” RELATED: For more essential health information delivered straight to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter.
According to Insider, exposure to extreme temperatures or light can speed up your sunscreen’s expiration. Heat breaks down the active ingredients in sunscreen that protect against UV rays, which happens to sunscreen regardless but at a slower pace if not exposed to too much heat. If you leave a bottle in your car over the summer, you may notice clear signs of expiration even if your sunscreen’s expiration date has not yet passed. Henry Lim, MD, a board-certified dermatologist in the Dermatology Department of the Henry Ford Health System, told Insider that “sunscreen, a lot of the time, needs to be maintained at room temperature and without significant exposure to light” to keep it from expiring faster than it should. If your sunscreen does not have an expiration date on it, you may not need to toss it immediately, however. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), sunscreens are required to have an expiration date unless the product has been proven to remain stable for at least three years. “That means, a sunscreen product that doesn’t have an expiration date should be considered expired three years after purchase,” the FDA says. But if it’s been more than three years since you bought it and there’s no expiration date? Toss it. The FDA says “expired sunscreens should be discarded because there is no assurance that they remain safe and fully effective.“ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb RELATED: If You See This at the Beach, Don’t Go in the Water, Experts Warn.
