Why do common household items (shampoo, toothpaste, medicine, etc.) have expiration dates and what happens once the expiration date passes?
In: Other
With medicine it’s because they lose effectiveness over time. They don’t spoil or anything, just get less effective.
Shampoo and toothpaste are similar – they might separate, losing consistency and usefulness.
Basically mixtures can fail over time. They shouldn’t hurt you but they might not be helpful.
EDIT: Gonna toss an edit as some people have chimed in and provided some really important information that might not get seen
Second edit: looks like I read about tetricycline toxicity in all of this and my brain went “Tylenol”. My bad.
– Looks like antibiotics and prescriptions can fall into the ” don’t take past the date” group too due to over-time toxicity increases
– Some things might grow mold, like opened shampoos
Honestly the Tylenol thing seems really important, as I’m sure nobody would consider it.
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