The festive season is one of the busiest periods for hair salons, and as such, many of us will likely be looking forward to a little respite in the new year. However, with appointment columns often looking a little sparse in January, it can provide the perfect opportunity to take stock of all of your products - and uncover those that might be expired. This begs the question: do expiry dates on hair products matter? We decided to do some digging...
All hair products have an expiry date, also known as a shelf life. Marz Cielen, a Schwarzkopf Collective 2022 Team Member from Billi Currie, explains: "Once this shelf life has passed, products can start to lose their potency and effectiveness, meaning they will no longer create the intended effect." However, in addition to products no longer performing to a high standard, there are others risks with expired hair products. Marz adds: "Hair products are vulnerable to microbial contamination; if they are not used up within a certain amount of time, bacteria can start to form and make the products unsafe for use. In most hair products, water is a major portion of the formulation, and hence provides a breeding ground for the growth of these microbes." As such, this is why it is also important to ensure you always close your products after use.
Farah Naz, from Farah Naz Hairdressing, explains that checking the expiry dates on your salon's hair products is easy: "Remember to regularly check the logo on the back of the product - it's a small picture of an open lid, and will normally tell you how long, in months, it will last for."
She also recommends: "Store your products in cool, dark places, as the environment your products are kept in will make a huge impact on their lasting power."
Marz also discusses the negative effects of using expired hair products, noting: "In some cases they can cause itchiness, redness on the scalp, and dandruff. The worst case scenario is that they might cause infections or hair loss - so always make sure you regularly check, and keep track of, the expiry dates on hair products, and if you are ever unsure, just throw it away."
Toby Dicker, owner of The Chapel, offers his advice on managing stock levels, to help reduce unused stock expiring, and thus going to waste. He says: “Having oversight of colour stock was once a managerial nightmare that involved counting tubes, tops or box ends and then, inevitably, restocking a regular spread of colours regardless. Using Vish has gotten rid of all that. It’s enabled us to monitor and track colour usage in a way that simply wasn’t possible before. Vish measures and automatically records all colour dispensed down to the tenth of a gram, allowing us to see how much is measured out by our stylists, which makes reordering easy."
Marz also offers some tips on avoiding expired stock, sharing: "I never buy products that are on sale, as they are usually priced as such because they are about to expire. "If you have multiples of one product, make sure you are going back to the same one each time, so only one is open at a time. This will ensure you get the most benefits out of your products." With Christmas columns filling up fast, you might want to check out this article on avoiding burnout in the festive season.
