Careful, the cosmetics at your home

Cosmetics, owned by many women in Britain can be up to four years out of date, a research revealed, and it warned that "the reluctance to throw away old products" was risky.

Research has shown that eye shadow, blush, lipstick, lip gloss, eyebrow pencils and perfume were often well past their use-by date, to put women's health in danger, the Daily Express reported Thursday.

Sara Stern, cosmetics' director of Dagenham’s, ¬ to complete the survey, says: "an unwillingness to throw the old ¬ products is a risky business."

"We would not hesitate to throw out moldy or bacteria-ridden food and the same standards should apply to lotions and potions.

"Hopefully this call to action will encourage women to have a ruthless spring clean of their cosmetics collections," she was quoted as saying.

¬ European guidelines clearly indicate the durability of the product. But the survey showed that 89 percent of women were unaware of ¬ the information available, did not understand what the symbol meant, or were unable to read ¬ often-tiny writing.

The chances of infection was multiplied by 68 percent of the women, only replaced makeup and skin care when they ran out, and 60 percent shared makeup.