Is your sunscreen expired? Enter what you know below and get a use-by date. The rules are simpler than they look: your real deadline is whichever comes first, the printed expiration date or the open-jar “12M” window counted from the day you opened it. And if your bottle has no date at all, the FDA says to treat it as expired three years after purchase. Can’t remember any of it? Then the answer is already decided, and it’s the trash can.
Check your bottle
Heat shortens all of these numbers: a bottle that lived in a hot car or on a sunny windowsill can go off before its date. If the color, texture or smell has changed, toss it regardless of what the calculator says.
Where these rules come from
Sunscreen in the US is regulated as an over-the-counter drug, so it must carry an expiration date unless the maker has proven it stays stable for at least three years. That’s also why an undated bottle is treated as expired three years after purchase, and why the FDA’s advice for a bottle of unknown age is simply to discard it [1]. The little open-jar symbol with a number, like 12M, is the European Period After Opening system: it means the product is meant to be used within that many months of first opening [2]. Korean sunscreens sold internationally usually carry one or both markings. And expiry aside, degradation has tells you can see and smell: changes in color, texture or scent mean the formula has broken down [3].
Buying discounted sunscreen? Freshness is exactly what to check first, and we walk through how in our off-price sunscreen guide. An expired bottle also tends to get tossed half-full, which is one more reason most people under-apply; the how much sunscreen guide covers what a full dose looks like.
Sources
[1] Sunscreen: How to Help Protect Your Skin from the Sun, U.S. FDA (expiration date required unless stable three-plus years; undated sunscreen expired three years after purchase; discard if age unknown; protect from heat and direct sun): link
[2] Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009, Article 19, European Union (open-jar Period After Opening symbol with number of months): link
[3] Shelf Life and Expiration Dating of Cosmetics, U.S. FDA (degradation shows as changes in color, texture and smell): link