Do you know how long your skincare will last after opening it? We’ve shared a few posts on our Instagram page about properly storing our skincare since our products come to you freshly made. If you’ve been following Botnia for a while, you may have also seen one of our past blog posts about it. We wanted to update you with some simple guidelines for taking care of your organic products, making it easy to switch to clean beauty.

4 steps to care for your organic skincare//

We’re sharing our best practices for taking care of your freshly made products. Here are 4 simple steps to remember:

• Keep it dry – Store your skincare out of the shower as much as possible. (Remember, water increases the chance of bacterial growth!
• Keep it dark – Store your products away from direct sunlight. Heat can also break down the molecules in your skincare causing it to change in texture.
• Keep it cool – If you don’t need to access them frequently, store your products in the refrigerator. (We don’t recommend keeping our oils or creams in the fridge. Just keep them cool and away from humidity. Serums, masks, and face washes are good to refrigerate!)
• Keep it closed – Products start to degrade once exposed to oxygen.
  
  Additional steps:

• Keep it clean – Wash your hands before dipping them into jars (like with our Daily Face Cream or Body Cream) or use a tool instead of your fingers, like a cotton swab or a small spatula or spoon. 
• Keep the date – Write the date of opening on the container so you know how fresh your skincare is. You can always check the batch number of your Botnia products here. 
• Water-based products are usually good for 6 – 8 months.
• Oil-based products are good for 12 months.
• Our powdered products are good for 12 months or longer if stored properly. 

Now that you know how to store your organic products, we’ll tell you why it’s good that your products go bad, our natural preserving system, and how to tell if your skincare is spoiled. 

Our skincare is alive//

Conventional wisdom is that longevity equals quality. But with our bodies, we actually want the opposite: anything that goes in or on our body must be fresh and therefore have a short shelf life. We look at our skincare much like you might look at food. Organic skincare is alive: filled with microbes and bacteria that are beneficial for your microbiome. And ultimately, all organic skincare should go bad . . . that means it’s good! We’re offering more nutrient-dense skincare, without strong preservatives. The flip side of this is that our products don’t have an indefinite shelf life like conventional skincare. We believe it’s actually healthy and natural if skincare starts to turn a little off over time—that means it’s alive, just like fresh food!

Our preserving system//

Our skincare isn’t filled with mystery ingredients. Botnia’s products come from the plants in our own micro-farm and from local farmers and suppliers we know and trust. There are natural antimicrobial botanicals that are similar to synthetic preservative systems that are effective against fighting bacteria. We use our rose geranium hydrosol in many of our formulations for its antibacterial and antifungal properties. It also is a humectant which means it helps retain moisture in both skin and in skincare. We also include a ferment mixed with the hydrosols that create positive bacteria within the product themselves, similar to kombucha. 

Our lab is completely sanitized and all of our products are packaged so that you never have to open the container or physically touch your products until they are needed for use. This helps reduce the introduction of bacterial or fungal cells in your skincare. Introducing water into the mix also allows bacterial cells to grow, but we combat this growth with our rose geranium hydrosol and by choosing essential oils that are both anti-inflammatory and antibacterial. We always make sure that the dermotoxicity of these oils are at a minimum. They are included not just to make your skincare smell good, but also to help protect it from spoiling – double-duty! 

Did my product turn?//

Use your senses if you think a product might be turning bad. Look to see if the texture or color has changed. And if you take a whiff, if it smells bad, it’s probably spoiled and you’ll want to dispose of it and recycle the container. Not sure? You can always send us photos to botniaskincare@gmail.com and we can check for you.

Caring for organic skincare takes a bit more effort than conventional skincare. We want you to think about the products you use on your skin and body and see that like nutrition, you want to use skincare that is fresh. Natural skincare means fewer preservatives, so fresher is always better!