How to Store Your Valuable Skincare

When you’re buying high-efficacy products built with scientific potency and delivery methods, you want to protect your investment but more than that, you want your products to work the way they’re supposed to!

Environmental factors such as heat, light and air exposure can accelerate the breakdown of many of the essential anti-aging ingredients that your skincare products contain.

Vitamin C, for example, can help brighten skin, stimulate collagen and defend against UV damage but it is also known to be unstable (which is why we so carefully choose the Vitamin C products we carry and recommend for clients.) This means that choosing the right brand, formulation, and storage method is the key to Vitamin C efficacy -- and all other actives.

For Most Skincare There are Three Storage Guidelines:

ONE_No sun, treat them like vampires!
Direct sunlight can accelerate the degradation of many anti-aging compounds, so keeping your products in your car or near a bathroom window may lower their effectiveness.

Instead, choose a dark location, such as underneath your bathroom countertop or in another cabinet or drawer where they’ll be protected from the light. Look for opaque containers and airless pumps when available. Both of these packaging methods help protect products.

TWO_Not too hot, not too cold
While keeping skincare products cool in the fridge can help to improve their shelf life, freezing temperatures has the opposite effect. Freezing products can render active ingredients ineffective. Eye creams, retinoids, and Vitamin C products can benefit from moderate refrigeration at home -- which is probably why the ‘skincare fridge’ is suddenly popular because running to the fridge AM and PM to retrieve your skincare seems a little cumbersome.

If you live somewhere with cold winters, like Colorado, make sure you’re not storing any products on window sills or other areas where the air temperature might drop below freezing.

THREE_Avoid Steam
A lot of people simply store skincare products on the bathroom countertop or in the shower, but these are some of the worst places to keep your products. The steam from the shower can break down key active ingredients, not to mention the fact that steamy environments provide the perfect breeding ground for mold and mildew.

Keep your products out of the shower. If you are going to keep them in the bathroom, use a cabinet or storage area that opens and closes and be sure the cabinet is closed while showering.