Somewhere in your makeup bag lives a lipstick from a previous era of your life and a mascara old enough to have opinions. Makeup expires — not as marketing, as microbiology — and the annual bag autopsy is both hygiene and, unexpectedly, a relief.

The Expiry Decoder

The little jar icon with a number (6M, 12M, 24M) counts from OPENING, not purchase. Mascara: 3 months (eye bacteria keep short calendars). Liquid foundation: 12ish. Powders: 24. Lipstick: 18-24, or sooner if it smells like crayons filed a complaint.

The Autopsy Criteria

Toss on sight: separated liquids, smell changes, texture weirdness, anything eye-related past its window, and the eyeliner from the era you cannot date. If you have to think about when you bought it, the thinking is the answer.

The Keep Math

What survives is what you actually wear — usually eight products doing 95% of duty. The five-minute face runs on a small roster anyway; the purge just makes the bag admit it.

The Restock Rules

Write opening dates on new products (tiny sticker, future-you’s gift), buy small sizes of anything used rarely, and let one-in-one-out govern the bag like the closet. The makeup drawer is a capsule too — it just needed the memo.

Decode the jar icon, retire the three-month mascaras, keep the working eight, date everything new. The bag autopsy takes twenty minutes and returns a bag where everything is safe, current and actually yours.