Does Shampoo And Conditioner Expire? If So, How To Find It?

Shampoo is a product which is used by almost all of the people in this world, no matter they are long or short haired, no matter they are rich or poor, no matter they live in urban or rural areas, no matter they all have similar hair issues, but everyone uses shampoo,

Some uses just a co wash shampoo, some uses anti dandruff shampoo, some uses shampoo specially made to treat hair fall issues, every one uses it and most of us might came across this question at some point, and in this article we are gonna address it,

The question is,

Does shampoo and conditioner expire? The atmost life of shampoo and a conditioner is 2 to 3 years if the bottle is opened, there is a chance of extended life if the bottle was not opened at all, but in most of the cases bottle is gonna be opened, so there is more test to be done to have a clear answer on it, the online answer is shampoo and conditioner do expire at some point.

Read this: Can You Mix Different Conditioners Together?

Now we are clear that the expire, and the next question that comes to out mind is,

Why do they expire?

Shampoos and conditioners are made with the synthetic preservatives which is used to keep them for a long term without being expired, but even the preservatives can not keep it for a long term since they are mixed with the water,

Water makes the shampoo and a conditioner to expire soon, the only reason they survive for 2 to 3 years is because of the added preservatives, and the so called natural shampoos that does not contain on contain less preservatives gets expired sooner than the usual time limit.

How do you know if a shampoo expired?

The expired shampoo can be detected with some of the following symptoms, you don’t want to be a detective to find it LOL,

1) change in smell

The first or most important thing that you will notice or need to be noticed is change in smell, the expired shampoo will have no smell or very less than the usual one,

In some cases you will even notice a bad smell, the chemicals used in the shampoo may make it smell bad after it is expired,

If you notice any of this symptoms, then you can come to a conclusion that your shampoo is expired.

2) Doesn’t work well as before

The work of any shampoo is clarifying the hair, if they don’t do that work properly then the shampoo is expired,

What anti-dandruff shampoo should do?

They should clear the dandruff, right?

Instead of doing that, if it does not clarify it well, or if it makes your scalp itch and white flakes appear sooner, then you can conclude that the shampoo is expired.

3) Change in cosistency

Any change in consistency of the product may indicate that it is expired,

The consistency is clearly visible to the human eyes, there may be the colorant and the shampoo are separated,

Any of these symptoms indicates that it is expired and it’s time to throw it away.

Is it safe to use expired shampoo, does it cause itchy scalp?

In my opinion the expired shampoo does not make any harm to your hair because the product is expired because it has lost its capacity, and the only thing it does is it does not work, thats all, other than that it does not harm your hair,

But few of the people that i know claim that, there is a chance of your hair being affected to the bacterial infections and there is a chance of itchiness and flaky scalp,

Anyway, it is better to not use the expired shampoo.

Does shampoo expire if unopened?

The unopened shampoo stays usable for 1 to 1.5 years linger than the opened shampoo, but they expire too.

Does shampoo go bad in heat?

Exposure to the heat and son may make the shampoo lose its properties, losing properties means, the shampoo will not work which means the shampoo is expired,

On the other side, can winter cause any bad to shampoo? a friend of mine has an experience, he left a shampoo in the winter and moved to another place for some personal reason and when he found the shampoo after a year the shampoo was good to use, so the winter and a cool place doesn’t cause any problem to the shampoo.

What to do with the expired shampoo?

What i actually do is, i use the expired shampoo to clean my bike, a normal shampoo works great and the expired shampoo works good, thats all the difference is,
You can use it to clean your bathroom, replace your bathroom cleaner or the detergent with the expired shampoo,
You can even use it to clean the stains that is under the area rugs, just try it, it is definitely not gonna do any harm to your floor,
You can use it to clean the dirty hair brushes, apply the expired shampoo all over the hair brush, leave it for the dirt sink into the shampoo, open the tap, place the brush as down as you can from the tap so that the water hit the brush in extra force, the dirt will be cleaned now without even touching it.

How to read shampoo expiration dates?

Some of the manufacturers put the manufacturing date and expiration date at the bottom of the bottle, some of the manufacturers puts only the manufacturing date and they will simply mention use it best before x months,

Few other manufacturers won’t even mention the manufacturing date, since FDA said mentioning expiration date is responsibility of the manufacturers, so some of them take advantage of it and do not mention it in their products, in this case you need to find it manually, if you see any of the symptoms that i mentioned above, please throw it away or use it for the alternative purposes that i mentioned above.

Final Thought

I have covered every possible questions regarding whether shampoo and conditioner expire or not, apply all the mentioned things to find out whether your shampoo is expired, and try to stay away from using it to your hair because your hair is the boss of your look,

It is above your head so it is head for your head LOL,

Use the expired one for the other purposes and stay safe,

Thank You.