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Does sunscreen actually expire?
Yes, and meaningfully. Most Australian sunscreens carry a 2 to 3 year shelf life and a 6 to 12 month period-after-opening window. Expired sunscreen can look and smell fine while protecting noticeably less.
In Australia, sunscreen is regulated as a therapeutic good, which means it has an ARTG listing and printed expiry date. The expiry is not cosmetic — it reflects how long the formulation is stable at the SPF rating printed on the label.
Heat and air exposure accelerate the process. A sunscreen left in the car through an Australian summer can degrade much faster than the date on the bottle suggests.
Worth watching
- Check the expiry date on every bottle you own today
- Look for the PAO symbol (a jar with a number inside, usually 6M or 12M) — that's months after opening
- If a bottle has separated, changed colour, or smells different to when you bought it, retire it
The Stella take
Expired sunscreen is one of the quieter reasons pigmentation scores drift in the wrong direction over a summer. If yours is past its PAO, the simplest protective move you can make today is buying a new bottle.
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Appearance-level observations, not therapeutic advice. Not a medical device.