It's Probably Time to Throw Out Your Cushion Compact

This post originally appeared on Allure. 

You may have noticed that, like the rest of the world, we've fallen in love with Korean beauty products. BB creams revolutionized our morning routine, and you'll have to pry our sheet masks from our radiant, moisturized fingers. So when we heard that one of our favorite K-beauty discoveries, the perfectly portable cushion compact, might actually be irritating our skin, we started to panic.

We've talked about the importance of keeping your beauty products fresh before—liquid and cream formulas in particular can become breeding grounds for fungus, bacteria, and other skin-irritating grunge. You also know, of course, that keeping your makeup brushes and sponges clean is vital to keeping your skin clear and healthy. So it makes sense that cushion compacts—the love child of foundation and a makeup sponge—would be susceptible to the same problems.

The good news is that because cushion compacts are designed to have a spongy, wet environment, a lot of testing goes into ensuring their safety and special preservative ingredients that are added to keep them fresh longer. That doesn't mean that they're impenetrable, though. As with all of your cosmetics, the way you treat them affects their shelf life, so things like not closing your cushion compact after use, sharing it with someone else, or leaving it in a warm, muggy environment like your bathroom can have adverse effects on your makeup and, in turn, your face.

So how long should you keep your cushion compact for? After six months, it's probably time for a replacement, according to cosmetic chemist Ron Robinson.

To get the full story on what you should (and shouldn't!) do to keep your cushion compact in top shape, head over to Refinery29.