Has storing your skincare anywhere but your medicine cabinet ever crossed your mind? When spending a pretty fortune on your beloved beauty products, potentially degrading their efficacy because of some less-than-ideal storage habits feels like a misuse of your hard-earned cash. Excessive fluctuations between hot and cold temperatures could cause harm for your go-to face cream, and here's why.
Sunlight, humidity, and temperature can impair the efficiency, potency, and even safety of your fave potions and lotions. The government of Canada website states certain guidelines for storing and using skincare safely.
Generally speaking, designating a spot in a dry, cool cabinet is the safest place to store your skincare products. However, certain ones require a little extra attention.
Avoiding Storage in Sunny Spots
Certain products are highly sensitive to the sun. Ingredients like vitamin c and retinoids can actually break down when exposed to heat and sunlight, diminishing their strength. Your expensive vitamin C treatments and retinols should 100% be kept in a dimly-lit place if they aren't already. Indoor lighting is okay, just make sure to avoid any sun-exposed areas, like your windowsill.
Skincare Storage While Showering
You'll also want to avoid keeping products out in the open during a steaming-hot shower (which is already ill-advised for skin health, but we all have our indulgences). Steamy showers may create an all-too-moist atmosphere in which bacteria thrives, and bacterial growth may make its way in or around your shiny tubs and tubes.
This rings especially true for any natural or 'organic' beauty products you may have laying around. Natural skincare has a shorter shelf life because it usually contains fewer preservatives. But regardless of a natural or synthetic formulation, storing skincare in a dry location can help prolong its longevity.
Along with avoiding humid storage spaces like the inside of your shower, ensure you tightly seal your products when you're done using them to limit exposure to moisture and bacteria.
Keeping Skincare Products Refrigerated
Maybe you've seen these mini-beauty-fridge contraptions while aimlessly scrolling through Instagram (or perhaps we're the only ones seeing those sponsored ads 🤷). Companies are now jumping on the refrigeration bandwagon, manufacturing tiny, portable refrigerators created solely for your skincare and beauty tools. Unnecessary? You can be the judge...
Skincare products that should totally avoid the cold? You'll want to make sure your oil-based products stay away from your condiments. Colder temperatures can cause the ingredients to separate, rendering your product ineffective. Otherwise, if you've chosen to keep your skincare in your family-shared fridge, we won't judge... Just know that it isn't totally necessary.
What you can do is 'prep' products in the fridge just before using them. For instance, you can place your favourite eye cream in the fridge for a few minutes before application for an extra cool pick-me-up in the morning. The colder temperature will help decompress any puffiness you may be rocking and seriously wake you up.
Aside from this general guidance, the best place to find storage instructions is on the manufacturer's packaging. So take a peek at what they recommend, and if you can't find any specific notes, default to a cool, dry location away from direct sunlight and heat.