MASCARA..TOSS OR KEEP??????

One of the most commonly advertised "rules" for mascara is that you're suppose to throw it out after 3 months. The reasoning behind this is that bacteria gets in the tube and can infect your eyes.

Is this a genuine issue, or is it a marketing scam to get you to need to buy more mascara, thus giving cosmetic companies more money?

I believe its the latter.

Lets look at this bacteria issue for a moment.

1) How would it get inside your mascara? Every tube of mascara I've seen has a tiny opening with a rubber stopper that prevents too much product from getting out, and basically anything else from getting in. You can't put any dirty fingers inside, and you're probably not going to spit in it or blow dirty air inside or something. The only place the applicator wand touches is your eyelashes. I can only speak for myself, but I usually put on eye makeup after washing my face, so theoretically I don't have germs in my eyes when I put my mascara on. On that note, your eyes don't make bacteria all by themselves, and they have a natural way of flushing out anything that isn't suppose to be there (tears!).

2) If it did get bacteria inside, so what? There's bacteria in the air, which gets in your eyes. Its on our fingers, which come into contact with ours eyes and mouths all the time. If you get an eye infection I think its more likely that it'll come from your fingers then your mascara. I have never even had pink eye or any kind of eye problem..ever..

3) Don't we do the exact same thing with lip gloss? We put the same wand on our lips and back into the tube everyday. As long as it doesn't go bad people generally use the same lip gloss for several years or until its used up. If there is bacteria its not going in our eyes, its going in our mouths which to me sound a lot worse. No one's telling us to throw out our lip gloss after 3 months because it might make us sick.

I think its pretty illogical to think your mascara is going to breed some horrible bacteria after 3 months. I have a ton of older mascaras and none have caused me any problems. I have yet to have one dry up. . I do tend to buy a lot of mascara but thats because I am always trying new ones. I have used some for years without ever having a problem..

This is just my opinion. You don't have to hold onto your mascara until the end of the world like me, but don't toss out something that still works great and waste that money.

Use your own judgement but I personally think its such a scam to have to throw out perfectly good older mascara when nothing is wrong with it..

K Jaggers

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